Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I live in northern colorado and was doing my nightly snake hunting for bull snakes and saw this thing hauling butt accross the road and I jumped out and caught myself a tiger salamander. I'm very familiar with keeping every other reptile except I've never owned a salamander. He or she is cool looking and I would like to keep it. If anybody could give me the requirements for it's care it would be much appreciated. Thanks,Kevin

I caught a tiger salamander the other day. i tried lots of different food but he likes live maggot. i put them in the lid of a jam jar. He ate them striaght away i put them in and in 5 seconds they are gone

Kevin: I've had my wild-caught tiger for 3+ years now. He's in a 10-gallon aquarium, with a mixture of Jungle Mix and soil from the place where I found him (under one of my horse water tubs!) I keep a water dish in too. A single-serve frozen lasagna dish fits very nicely.

I feed him crickets, meal worms and earthworms. I try to vary the diet so he doesn't get too much or too little of something. I keep the soil moist. We have well water so I don't worry too much about additives. I think city water might be different.

Sometimes in spring or early summer, if we are lucky enough to get rain in the Texas Panhandle, I find little white grubs, roly-polys, or small worms when digging in the garden. Since I don't use any fertilizer except horse manure, and this is the area he came from, I feel comfortable feeding him those, too. Once I found a nest of newborn mice in my grain bin. He sure liked those little pinkies!

At first I would just put the food down in front of him and watch from a distance to make sure he ate. But in no time, he got to where he would see me coming and go nuts begging for food. Now I just have to be careful he doesn't grab my finger because that sucker can hang on.

I usually feed him every two or three days, and he is plenty hefty. I was away for two weeks (just got back yesterday)and no one to take care of him. So I fed him every day for a week in advance (he really liked that!). When I got back, he was just fine. Didn't look like he'd lost an ounce.

I hope you have as much fun with yours as I've had with mine.

Thank you for all the info. He is in a ten gallan tank with bark chips on the floor and a container in the corner for water he ca swim in. I have a jar lid in the bottom for food. He eats maggots, mealworms, super worms and baby crickets. He is about 6 inches long and lucks very fit. He has shed his skin already. At first he was quite shy now he often comes out of his log when i walk into the room to greet me. I have seen a cool setup with dirt halfway up the tank and a tube next to the front part of the tank and you can see the den from the outside. They put a black skirt around the outside to keep it dark. Can you keep two or more salamanders together?

Thanks
Joe

You could keep more than one tiger sal together, just not in a 10 gallon tank a 20 gallon long tank would be good for two or three tigers.