Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone could tell me the proper way to feed my salamander. I've never kept this type of animal before, I gave him a cut up earthworm yesterday. I was just wondering, because I read that you shouldn't leave live food in there with him and I have moss covering the bottom, so when I put a small cricket in there today he disappeared in the moss. I've heard of crickets attacking salamanders, but will that one little cricket be a problem since I can't find him? Should I just hold the live cricket in front of his face with a tweezers or something, or is it ok to just put a few in the cage? Any other feeding instructions or tips that I don't know about would be helpful to. Any informantion is great.
Thanks.

you can throw about 6-10 in at a time (crix) and that should be ok, with worms i have had tigers overfeed on them then regurgitate them up and foul the water-so limit how much they eat at a time-they can overeat! i have a friend who has 2 tigers and has never fed them live food-he doesnt like crickets in his house, so he feeds his by hand, canned dried crickets and they are FAT! tigers become tame easily and will eat just about anything handed to them-they even snap at movements outside the tank. feeding them is no problem, i recommend dusting the live food with vitamin or calcium powder.

I feed mine by holding a live cricket or worm (or piece of giant earthworm) in my fingers because I'm too clumsy with tweezers. He grabs them without hesitation.

I used to leave live crickets in, but then one time I came back later to change his water dish and when I took the top off and picked the dish up, a cricket jumped off the bottom of the dish. I had a heck of a time corraling that insect.

So now I just hand-feed. Plus, it is way more fun and you get to interact with your sal and he gets really, really tame.

When I feed my tiger crickets, I usually drop two large (live!) ones into the cage, then sit back and watch him get to work. He seems to smell them, and can track them down, catch them and gobble them up in just a few minutes. He's an amazing hunter!

I feed him two crickets every other day. Now that its warm again, I catch roly-poly bugs, earthworms and other insects in the yard, and feed him those on occasion. He only gets the crickets in the winter months. I'd rather give him more variety, but its just not possible.

He's thriving. Has grown about 15 - 20% in the ten months that I have had him.