Taricha feeding

[kellee]

I'm the proud new momma of two taricha (what I
-now- believe to be granulosa, but what the pet store called torosa), I'm feeding them crickets right now, which they eagerly accept, but I'm wondering how reguarlary I need to feed them? The couple days I've had them I just keep crickets in the tank...they tend to leave the water only when they're hungry.

 

[jeff]

Crickets are good, but they die easy. The need vitamins and I don't reccomend dusting them unless you can feed them directly with tweezers. Buy special cricket vitamin food, I use Fluckers orange 3 if you can find it. Keep the crickets in a small, seperate container with the food for at least a day.

ttry fozen bloodworms, they are a good supplemnt and the newts love them, just try putting near them in the tank, they should find them.

Jeff

 

[pin-pin]

Hey Kellee,

Congrats and welcome to the Taricha family.

Hopefully you will have photos to share with us in the near future.

You might want to check out the caresheet on T.granulosa: http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Taricha/T_granulosa.shtml

As for feeding, it depends on the temperature, but once every 2-3 days is sufficient for an adult.

Crickets are fine, as long as you make sure they're well-fed (sometimes stores starve the crickets to the point where there's little nutritional value). Generally, a chopped earthworm will stimulate your animals to interact with you more often and also allow you to monitor the food intake of the animal more consistently. I feed mine almost exclusively chopped nightcrawlers.

 

[jeff]

hey Pin-pin, where do you get your earthworms. Only ones I can find are for fishbait. I don't trust those at all.

 

[danny]

Whats your reasoning behind your mistrust of baitshop earthworms? Ive been using dew and trout worms from a local baitshop for well over a year and my newts are all still alive. They've all put on a healthy amount of weight. Maybe if you find some in a non pesticide area you could start your own worm culture. Ive never had trouble finding worms though, stick a shovel in the dirt, turn it over and 9 times out of ten theres a worm. Do you live in a big city center? It would be a pain trying to find worms in a large urban sprawl

 

[pin-pin]

Jeff, I get my worms from the local pet shop since I don't live near a bait shop. I think bait shops are probably fine unless you buy something that is "scented" to attract fish. There's always a risk of something going awry, but unless you want to culture your own worms (people in this forum do that, actually).

 

[jesper]

Hey!
"people in this forum do that, actually"

That sounded like a sneak-attack(aka cheap-shot) on us poor, endangered amateur worm-cultivists!

(Message edited by Jesper on January 23, 2005)