Hynobius food

[henk_wallays]

I would like to get an idea about which food items you offer to your Hynobius.

1. Adults & juvenile ;
I have good experiences with worms , any kind even the tropical fish bait worms are eaten. Next best choices for my group seem to be are buffalo worms (these look like little mealworms) and fly maggots. The latter sofar have never posed a problem for the animals. For the juveniles pinkies seem to do well, even very well. If I have nothing else I would eventually buy crickets

In the water I would also offer musketo larvae (chyronomids), but this can never be the full diet, since it is poor on calcium.

I have also offered them slugs as food bu they seem to dislike it and don't touch it.

2. Larvae

These are offered tubifex, daphnia and chyronomid larvae. As they get larger pieces of worms may be offered too , but tihs dpends on the number of animals to raise (will be difficult with large groups)

Now tell me what your approach is. Any tips , interesting observations ?

 

[Jake]

I try to offer both my H.dunni and H.tsuensis small pieces of nightcrawler whenever possible. If I don't have them available I use gut-loaded crickets, but they seem to readily accept chopped nightcrawler off tweezers.

 

[froggy]

My adults do very well on a mixture of waxworms, garden earthworms and occassional supplementary garden invertebrates, eg woodlice.

I fed my larvae daphnia, mosquito larvae and pond plankton, following up with small or chopped earthworms later on.

 

[henk_wallays]

And how about the frequency of feeding them ? I offer mine food 1 to 2 times a week

 

[froggy]

I offer once a week as a rule, with supplementary food added if I find some in the garden (e.g. woodlice when moving plant pots etc.). The weather has cooled down here a bit and my animals aren't feeding as eagerly as they did during the summertime now.

Henk - I will send you my entry the Hynobius spreadsheet soon; I need to recount my animals first!

Chris

 

[Jake]

I feed about twice per week. Sometimes more, sometimes only once.

 

[henk_wallays]

And what would be the temperature you are both keeping them at . Does it fluctuate ? My animals are guarded in an unheated gardenhouse so it follows the outside temperatures be it that the shifts are smoothened and the peaks are flattened off. In the winter it gets close to 0°C in the summer it may go over 25°C.

 

[froggy]

Temps are exactly same as yours, but perhaps a little cooler in the summer, maybe 25 max, as I keep mine in a shed too.

Chris

 

[Jake]

The tanks here get between about 32 degrees farenheit (0 C) and 68 degrees F (20 C).

 

[duncan]

Those of you feeding worms of various sorts, are you all hand feeding with tweezers? Do the newts come out of hiding to hand feed or do you have to track them down individually? I am wondering how easy this is when you have a larger number of animals in a set up with many layers of hides?

Thanks,
Duncan

 

[froggy]

Some of my animals are tamer than others, some are more alert than others. I usually have to lift up pieces of decor that I learn that animals particularly like to hide beneath and then tweezer feed. If I find all animals and manage to feed them all, I generally don't add extra food, but if I haven't found an animal, or one fled without feeding, I drop in extra worms/waxworm.

 

[Jake]

I move the moss around and find them all, or if I see a hole with a face in it, I just hold the piece of worm at the entrance and they usually come out for it. The ones I have remind me of little tiger salamanders with the way they feed.

 

[froggy]

I should note that during term time, whilst I am away at Uni, my brother looks after the H. dunni for me. he just drops an assortment of waxworms (main proportion of diet) and other inverts into the tank, and then waits to hear the 'popping' noises of the animals beginning to feed once the bugs have crawled into what first appeared to be a nice dark hiding place for them....!

Chris