D
dana
Guest
Not only am I new to this forum, but I'm new to salamander care. The nature center I am naturalist at was given a Tiger last July. We were given the home he'd been living in for over a year--no history on him prior to that. The former owner fed him worms. I just did what she said she did. There are some rocks, wood chips, plastic vegetation and a flower pot with the bottom removed as well as a shallow water bowl that she told me to put this stuff in--don't know the name and don't have the package in front of me--but it's as hard as a brick and I have to pry some off the brick and then when it goes in water it gets like mud which he loves to burrow in. Every thing had been going fine. He was active, ate good. I fed him a night crawler every 3 days or so. All I did was dangle it near him, get his attention and then he'd lunge for it. Once he had the end in his mouth, he would shake his head like a dog with a sock in his mouth only slower. then he would bit by bit take the worm down. All was well. Until last weekend. As with every Friday, I moistened his water bowl and fed him. With President's day it was a 3 day weekend and when I got back on Tuesday, his bowl of mud had dried considerably. He was in the corner of the tank on a rock looking pretty pathetic. Once before he had gotten out of his tank and we found him in the basement of the building all dry, skinny, and covered in sheet rock dust from the construction going on in the basement. That time I washed him really good, put him in a plastic tub with a 1/4" of water and gave him a worm. Within a few hours, you wouldn't know anything happened. So I tried that again. I washed him off, put him in the plastic tub with water and tried to feed him. He wouldn't eat. He was barely moving. I let him alone for a while and he started looking much healthier--moistened up like a sponge that had been dry--grew to twice the size he was when he was dry. So I tried feeding him again. No dice. The same thing the next day and the next day and the next. Today he was more active, but still wouldn't eat. I found out on another list serve that he should be eating more than worms so I took a cricket from the tarantula and put it in his tank. That was about 12 hours ago and I haven't been back to check on him so I don't know if he ate it or not. You have our life story now--any advice? I have just been adding water to his bowl from a bottle that I fill from the faucet and let get to room temperature. We have well water but it is softened. Is this hurting him? Some of you have said crickets aren't so good unless they are gut loaded. What does that mean and how do I do it? For the tarantula I just go buy a dozen large crickets, put them in his cage with a few lettuce leaves and when he has them all eaten in about 2 weeks, then I wait a few days and then get him some more. Am I doing that wrong too? Boy, I sound pathetic. But pathetic or not, I need advice. I've read every word on this section and learned a lot, but I need more. Thanks in advance!}
