What do you feed your terrestrial dwelling efts?

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tiger060187

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I have two fire belly newts that I ordered from china. I'm concerned at this point that they were not captive breed but I have them in a paludarium that I built. They stay on the land side and refuse to go in the water. I've had them for several months and the only thing the will eat is earthworms cut up. I've been feeding them on a stainless steal plate and I've tried mixing other stuff in with the earthworms and when I do they won't eat. I thought training them to eat off the tray would help to introduce different foods but I've had no luck, though they do know when I put the tray down that it's feeding time. So my question is this... is it ok that they will only eat earthworms? I've seen multiple posts about people feeding black worms but when I tried they bury themselves under the moss. So do you feed live or frozen thawed? Obviously live gets there interest but a lot of times the food gets lost in the moss and I'm concerned they won't find it....

Thanks for any input!
 
You could try dusted lesser mealworms or blackworms. I use gatorade lids- newts quickly learn this is the food dish.
I am terribly curious as to how you got newts sent to you from China.
 
Herpin Man said:
You could try dusted lesser mealworms or blackworms. I use gatorade lids- newts quickly learn this is the food dish.
I am terribly curious as to how you got newts sent to you from China.
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I literally ordered them, and then realized it was weird when they came shipped as garden shovels! I was worried they wouldn't even be alive but they were and they sent an extra one.
 
They were labeled as garden shovels because it has been illegal to export newts to the US for quite a few years now.
 
tiger060187 said:
I literally ordered them, and then realized it was weird when they came shipped as garden shovels! I was worried they wouldn't even be alive but they were and they sent an extra one.
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How are the newts? I do the same with the gatorade caps only use milk jug caps (and clean them out first of course)add water once it evaporates from the caps. I have some luck with small earthworms from my fertilizer free garden. Do you know what species exactly they are do you have pictures?
 
Newthanial said:
How are the newts? I do the same with the gatorade caps only use milk jug caps (and clean them out first of course)add water once it evaporates from the caps. I have some luck with small earthworms from my fertilizer free garden. Do you know what species exactly they are do you have pictures?
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Sorry it took so long to get back to you!
 

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The paludarium is 2/3 water and they just stay on mossy land. One of them has gotten brave and swam to the other side one time. He staid there for a day and then swam back. They mostly hang out on or in a faux log at the back of the tank.
 
tiger060187 said:
2/3 of the enclosure is water and they have only ventured in on their own once
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Do you have any suggestions to get them to adjust to the water. I built the paludarium specifically for them but I'm considering making them a different enclosure that is more land ( very moist of course) with a pool of water since they really couldn't care less about all the water in their current enclosure.
 
tiger060187 said:
Sorry it took so long to get back to you!
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I have had all my success keeping my newts almost fully aquatic besides a piece of floating cork bark and plants. They eat regularly and seem constantly hungry in water. I would check your water parameters and make sure the ammonia and nitrates are good. Very similar to fish if you have ever kept them. I just put ghost shrimp in my newts enclosure and seems like its a good enrichment for all my species they enjoy trying to catch them and their company except my spanish ribs I think they ate all of them soon as they entered the water
 
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