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Posted by EdK on March 01, 2003 at 16:37:48:
In Reply to: Re: OK, please bear with me.. posted by jennewt on March 01, 2003 at 14:54:57:
::I buy earthworms from the bait store and keep most in the fridge. I put a few in a with some of their original soil, some Jungle Mix taken from when I clean Jaws' tank, some coffee grounds. Some there for 2 weeks 'til they get fed. Sometimes I will find little ones that I didn't see when I put them in there. The crickets I buy at the pet store and put with cut-up apples or carrots. If I don't feed them all within a week, they usually die. Plus I'm paranoid abou them escaping.
::Now, dumb question. Out in the wild where he was born, how would my tiger have gotten all these complex 10-to-1, etc. vitamins and calcium etc.?
::I don't have the resources or space to set up cricket-raising, worm beds, etc. I am not a true herp, just someone who's had an accidentally found tiger for three years and wants to take good care of him!
:Regarding the not-so-dumb question, if your tiger were in the wild he would probably have a greater variety of foods and perhaps fresher foods. In my opinion, the diet you are giving him is great. Dusting his crickets once a month or so is probably worth doing just in case he's missing something (because he doesn't get slugs and millipedes and whatever else he'd be getting in the wild), but his basic diet sounds fine.
According to the natural history reports the following items have been documented from the gut contents of "wild" tiger salamanders, insects, worms, young field mice, a lizard (racerunner), snails, tadpoles,other salamanders, fairy shrimp and other benthic organisms. In the labs they would also readily consume small snakes and other species of lizards.
Given the wide variety of potential prey items that are consumed by the salamander in the wild you can begin to see how the salamander has a more balanced diet. Also many of the items that the salamander feeds upon in the wild are not "clean", they either have soil or other detritius attached to them or have soil in the intestional tract (like worms) which would help them with the calcium balance and even supply other minerals to the animal.
The reason its good for the owner to understand the relationship of vitamin A to D3 to E is that if you are adding anything to the diet then you want to keep within this ratio to prevent problems (either over or undersupplementing a vitamin or mineral). For example, if you decided you were concerned about too little vitmain D3 and went out and bought a supplement containing nothing but D3 and calcium and supplemented everything offered the salamnder with this mix on a daily basis then you could oversupplement the animal and cause soft tissue calcification, (if the diet is too high in fat you could cause calcium soaps to precipitate out in the digestive tract).
Hope this helps,
Ed
