Feeding newly terrestrial salamanders

[pinksmog]

Please forgive my lack of knowledge! I've been trying to research but am a little confused on specifics for my salamander's life stage.

I recently received two spotted salamanders as a surprise present. They were fully formed but not completely out of water yet. They now have made the transition to fully terrestrial salamanders (so cute!), they're about 2" roughly. I'm unsure what/how to feed them. Everything I've read is either too big or I've not used personally (daphnia). I also don't have a resource locally to get any cultures started. Any recommendations of relatively easy food i.e. something a regular pet shop would have or I don't have to grow and how to feed it to them? I'm not sure where to put the food now that they're burrowing in the dirt around their container.

Any recommendations would greatly be appreciated! If I do need to get a culture, I will, but just not easily accessible and inexperienced with how that would work/how to feed it.

 

[Jennewt]

The easiest option would be pinhead crickets. Some pet shops receive them regularly, or can special-order them. They are very perishable, so you will need to get skilled at receiving/maintaining the pinheads.

Some other options would be live fruit flies, isopods (aka woodlice), or teaching the sals to hand-feed with small bits to earthworm (see https://caudata.org/cc/articles/worms2.shtml).

 

[pinksmog]

Hey thanks so much for the info! I'm trying worms!