Feeding young terrestrial Chinese Fire Bellies Newt with wild caught insects

[JM29]

Hi,
I have 3 CFB newts efts, which are fully terrestrial.
I keep them in a small enclosure with a lot of wet oak dead leaves.
I introduced sprigtails and woolice and also bring fruit flies, which are well eaten by the newts.
Unfortunately I had a lack of fruit flies for 3 or 4 days and I had to look for other small preys.
It's spring and we have a fine weather. a lot of small insects are now available.
I started to collect psyllids (a common insect akin to aphids) on the bushes around my house and small CFB eat them very well.

 

[Niels D]

I sometimes use (what people call) meadow plankton to feed efts. When you go through tall grass with a net you'll catch a great variety of small insects. Only meadows which aren't treated with pesticides are suitable. There will be psyllids amongst them of course. Great food.

I also culture white worms. If you throw in a bunch they won't clutter continuously, like tubifex would, if you keep the animals on wet towel like I do. White worms will crawl through the setup, especially in the night.

 

[JM29]

You're right.
A friend of mine used meadow plankton to give food diversity to his Dendrobates frogs.

As for white worms, I've never cultured any but I collect them outdoors, especially in damp mapple dead leaves (not in April since these leaves decay very fast)

 

[Niels D]

If you're interested in culturing white worms, this method works best for me:

 

[JM29]

Thanks a lot !
(I've no dogs but my cats love to lick yoghourt