Slugs????

[meagan]

I was wondering if slugs can be on the menu? could i feed my chinese fire belly newt (cynops orientalis) slugs???? Im not sure i would love to try but i don't want to kill her or anything, shes been my buddy for 3 years now.
Thanks

(by the way im also looking for a CB male for her)

 

[meagan]

one more thing, does anybody know where i can buy live food online and not cost an arm and a leg, or is it a "get what you pay for" kinda thing?

Thanks

 

[tony]

i've kept some backyard caught slugs in my tank with my fire sal but he totally ignored them and they just slimed up the tank. slugs have always been my least favorite critters so after this i toatlly removed them

later i read up about all the nematoads slugs harbor and figured there much better foods available(wild caught, bought and harvested). i could easily find slug eggs under rocks in ym yard but still fear the parasite risk


my current marbled sals quickly snap at the wild caught and growing pillbug culture roaming free in the tank, store bought crickets and one of them does tweezer feed on full waxworm and nightcrawler chunks.. just wish the rest were so easy

 

[pin-pin]

Hi Meagan,

Often you can find reasonably priced foods at a bait shop. Many of the fancier fish shops will also sell live food.

I regularly feed slugs to my animals. Slugs are one of the natural foods of wild newts, but slugs are also known to give off unpleasant tasting mucous as part of their defense, and may not be accepted by your animals.

If you want to be extra cautious, you could quarantine the slug for a week and "clear out its system" by feeding it vegetables and such. Thus you can control what is in the slug's gut when you feed it to your newts.

 

[meagan]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I would also like to know if you guys know of any places that i can buy live food on the internet. I live in a small town on an island and we dont have any good pet shops or bait shops. Thanks

 

[brian]

I've fed slugs to Tylototritons, Taricha, Triturus, and Ambystomids. They were wild caught and I thought some natural materials/nutrients would do a newt some good. I wasn't aware of a nematode issue, so I may stop. NY weather rules out collecting now anyway. Tony, if you have any literature or references, I'd appreciate them. I can tell you that some newts don't seem interested, but for some T. rivularis I had years back, slugs would "jump start" some newts that lost interest in worms and get them eating again...

 

[cameron]

I collect slug eggs and leave them in exhibits. Then they hatch and I let the smallest Plethodon serratus eat them.