Your newt may seem small and cute, but make no mistake, he or she is a hunter. Newts are carnivorous hunters, who in the wild, forage for fresh food every day to sustain their lives. Newts are also much more intelligent than some of the other freshwater aquarium pets you might keep. Pets like goldfish don’t know the difference between flake fish food and fresh live food. Fish will never refuse a meal just because they are not moving on the surface of the tank. This is not necessarily true with newts.
Often times, certain newts, especially fire-bellied newts, will refuse food that is not fresh. This is due to his hunting instincts. These instincts have kept newts alive for millions of years and cannot easily be ignored. So what do you do if your pet newt isn’t eating the food you’re feeding it?
This isn’t a very big problem, if your newt isn’t eating the dry food you’re trying to feed it, you should probably try fresh food. Fresh, live food is very likely to stimulate the hunting instinct of newts and trap and feed them.
Here are a few examples of some store-bought foods a picky newt may eat. Try feeding your newt brine shrimp, bloodworms, tubifex, daphnia, or bloodworms. These types of pet foods can be found at most larger pet stores. Here are some examples of newt food that you can find in your backyard. Try to catch small insects, crickets, slugs, or earthworms. These are creatures that most of us can find in our backyards.
So if your newt isn’t eating newt flakes or pellets, don’t panic, try some fresh food instead.