Grisly find in my yard - sort of neat, but mostly grisly

[Quinn]

After digging holes for the support posts for a deck at my old place, before we could place the posts and fill with concrete, we had to remove a half dozen frogs from each hole (mostly dead unfortunately), and a mouse. Not sure whether they got in there by mistake or whether something drew them in, but it was a little unfortunate.

I haven't seen a tiger salamander in years either, but if 14 of them are getting stuck in an area three feet by one and a half or so, I'd assume there's a healthy population around your place.

[Delphinus]

There haven't been any more since but I guess they're all underground by now, it's so cold outside at night.

Indeed, must be a healthy population, but alas, the flipside is they're 12 fewer now. Well, 14 fewer, as I haven't released the two survivors. It's so cold outside now I don't think I should release them until the spring. Been reading up and talking to people who know more about them and seems like it ought to be easy enough for them to hibernate in my terrarium for a few months. In the meantime I'll try fattening them up with crickets and whatnot.

They don't seem to do much. Been about a week and a half and they started eating a few days ago so now at least they're putting some weight on, but mostly they just kinda sit there. At night I notice they walk around a bit but even still they don't seem to be terribly active. I guess they are supposed to be hibernating now so I guess that could explain that.

Nevertheless I do think they are pretty neat. I should try getting some photos of them, they're really quite pretty in a way.

[pandafishowner]

awww, poor lil guys that died. I'd never seen a tiger salamander so I googled them. they're little cuties maybe not as cute as my gecko, but right up there with them.

way to go for taking care of the last two though

[muck]

My sister had Tiger Salamanders in her Terrarium for years growing up.. They over-winter just fine. Hers loved earthworms. Maybe its not too cold out yet to dig up the flower beds to find some..

[justinl]

yeah, definitely get pics up!

are you are feeding live only feed? and at random times (or just within the time when they hunt in nature... nocturnal i would think)? I think it would be a bad idea for you to feed dead or to help them feed in any way (other than supplying the food of course). If you release them into the wild and they expect to be fed at a certain time all your efforts might just end up a waste.

[prodogg02]

i never seen for for like 12 years then about a 3 months ago is was on a field job just south of my shop in se calgary the guy that was with me went over to this pond and pick up a sheet of ply wood and said there was 2 that wear like 14 inchs long i didnt believe him so i went over an he wasnt full of it i caught one and it was 15inchs it was crazy huge looked awsome colby at elite said they can get to 18inchs since the 5 of them have wanderd into the shop.

[Delphinus]

Yeah, I'm reading they can get pretty big! I had no idea. These guys are about 3.5", maybe 4" head to tail.

So far I'm feeding them crickets, and some kind of icky wormy things you can get at Petland. Apparently you have to be careful what you feed them, like, the crickets can't be more than 2 weeks old and superworms need to be decapitated because they can bite and chew their way out after being swallowed. So no superworms!! But trying some wax worms (moth caterpillars) since they're apparently high in fat and these guys could use some bulking up. Although one of them won't touch worms, already seems ot have developed a preference for crickets.

The one sucky thing is that every now and again I find an escapee cricket.

The one upside though is that I've always wanted to get into dart frogs, and just hadn't ever gotten around to it because I thought feeding baby crickets would be a hassle. Now that I'm doing it anyhow at the moment it wouldn't be much of an incremental step. Now to convince the wife. Yeah, yeah, it'll be a good educational exercise for our toddler! Yeah yeah!