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

Noticed a couple dessicated salamanders in my window well, guess they must have fallen in there looking for a spot to hibernate. Went to clean them up and found about 14 dead salamanders under the rocks. Most of them were dead but in a clump of about 8 all huddled together two were not dead.

I haven't seen a tiger salamander locally in something like 20 years, and now I find a whole pile of dead ones.

Unfortunately the two survivors are likely not long on this earth, they're pretty dehydrated and emaciated. I'm going to see if I can rehabilitate them, it's not too much effort to go buy some mealworms and crickets for them.

Boy I feel kinda bad that my basement window well was basically a tiger salamander graveyard :( It's so weird, why mine? My neighbours window well 4 feet away has none that I can see. Weird.

They were looking in at your tank! LOL

man that would suck to find... hope your house doesnt get haunted by the ghosts of a thousand salamanders. good luck on the rehab.

A tiger salamander wondered right into our office in the spring. He looked to be in pretty bad shape too. One of the ladies at the office offered to take him home and try to save him. I glad to say he made a full recovery. All he really needed was a pool and some crickets.

Good luck with the ones that made it.

Glad to hear it! :)

Bought some crickets and some mealworms, they're now sitting in a bucket with some soil and a water dish and their prospective food in there too. They're pretty much unresponsive to anything though, although they seem to wake up if I spray some mist on them. We'll see, I guess if they thought they were hibernating then it would probably take some time to snap out of it.

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.

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.

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

way to go for taking care of the last two though :biggrin:

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.. :wink:

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.