New morph won't eat...when do I get worried?

[moinkable]

Ok so I'm just a nervous newbie posting up a storm...
Guava-newt morphed on sunday. He wasn't eating for a few days before and I still can't seem to tempt him. He went from tweezer feeding on bloodworms like a greedy little pig to running away whenever the tweezers go near him. . I have him in a terrestrial setup with irish moss and a water dish, misted once a day. I think he's a bit on the thin side, but not emaciated yet. I've read that sometimes new morphs won't eat, but I"m going on vacation next week and would like to get him eating nice for the babysitter before i go.

I have a few options for live food:
-red wrigglers (Local)
-springtails (ordered a culture...should come in next thurs)
I cant find a whiteworm supplier in canada, unfortunately.

So..should I be worried? Any tips to get him eating? Is his setup ok? Also, how long can he last without eating??

Thanks for all of your help!!!

 

[froggy]

The setup looks fine, but make sure that it stays relatively dry - it mustn't be muddy. An alternative setup is damp paper towels with a simple hide. The morph will be very shy for a while - they seem to undergo a behavioural reset. It will also need live food, as you suggested. If you can gather tiny woodlice, springtails, tiny worms, aphids, hatchling crickets (particularly black ones) and just leave them in the vivarium, he will hunt for himself. Alternatively, live blackworms or bloodworms can be left overnight on wet kitchen roll, so that they wriggle, and he will find them.

The most important thing is to avoid disturbing him too much, so don't dig him out to check on him too often.

This article deals with rearing this species from morph:

Caudata Culture Articles - Raising Juvenile Newts

Good luck,

C

 

[moinkable]

So...

It's been over a week. Both newts are morphed now. Neither eating....

I've tried:
-Tweezer feeding bloodworms
-Tweezer feeding miniature red worms (live)
-Adding red worms to the enclosure...right in front of the newts
-Adding white worms
-Putting them in a container with paper towel and red worms for about an hour. The morphs crawled out rather than bother trying to eat anything.

The newts will actually let the bloodworms stick to their face and let the earthworms crawl over them....no interest. I'm going on vacation in a few days and could really use some ideas! I really dont want to come home to find them dead, and there's only so much I can get a sitter to do.....

Ideas???? Help!

 

[Mark]

It sounds pretty normal. When newts go through metamorphosis they become entirely different characters, often timid and reclusive. Chances are they won't hand feed for many weeks or months whilst they're adjusting to their new way of life. In the case of cynops new morphs have a particularly "tricky" phase.

As Chris says you need to offer a variety of live food in the enclosure - fruitflies, whiteworms, tiny woodlice, lesser waxworm, small slugs, spring tails etc. If you have access to a garden, 10 minutes with a pooter (google it) should secure you a fine selection of small insects. Spring tails and woodlice are easier to collect at night by torch light.

 

[Bellabelloo]

I would just add lots of live food, tiny worms, fruitfly, white worms and so on . I left some efts during the summer like this for 10 days, I worried that when I came home I would find little dried up corpses. They where completely fine and had lovely little round tummies.

 

[moinkable]

Thanks for the reassurances everyone. I'll go see what I can dig up for 'em before I go..

 

[Joost]

AW: New morph won't eat...when do I get worried?

I keep juvenile Cynops also terrestrial, but on gravel. One side of the tank has a higher layer wich is the 'land-area', the lower part stays under water (max.2 cm.). Like this it's somewhere about 60/40 land/water. I feed mostly tubifex worms on a moist toilet- or tissue paper, few times fold. In the earlier stages of their life, I won't see them eat also. They mostly do this during night-time, after the lights are out. After a few months they don't know better, that after a new moist paper has been placed in their tank, food will come.

 

[Molch]

Re: AW: New morph won't eat...when do I get worried?

I saw this behavioral change in my marbled morphs. They did indeed become shy and reclusive after morphing. If they get disturbed too much by attempts to hand-feed them, they may just clam up instead. It might be best, as everybody says, to just fill up their container with food and leave them alone.

a few methods that worked for me:

- keeping the substrate very fluffed up by adding lots of leaf litter. I collect dry willow leaves outside. This makes many small pockets and caves in the substrate that the newts dig into to find food. I lay moss cushions collected outside on top; the newts like to bury into those, and so do the white worms and bugs
- whiteworms crawl around and get more active after a bit of spraying. That's when the newts can easily find them
- make very high densities of food. They are shy and don't necessarily want to walk around in the open. If the newts can find lots of food without having to leave their cover, that'll be best.
- flightless fruit flies are cool. Super-easy to breed, and the newts do love to eat them.