Thought I'd share a couple of stories.

Remeber when I posted the pic of the black and yellow eastern garter with the question of id because I was planning on buying him? Well I went through with that and he arrived on the 9th, a day later then he was supposed to show. (The 5 babies I also bought from someone else arived on the 8th)

Anyway... I had been feeding him goldfish and smelts and worms at the same time so the movement would get him eating the smelts.

Yesterday I bought some salmon for the first time (fresh caught... nothing added... no color added etc) and a packet of frozen smelts... I also got some goldfish so I could feed everyone their midweek snack. Then I relized I goofed... I portaned out the goldfish 5 to a snake for my old snakes... and relized that I didn't set any aside for Racer (the new adult) .. it was too late sence I had the fish in the food bowls and even though they should all be clear of parisites I don't like to mix old and new when I have someone in quarenteen just in case.

SO I thought I'd just try to give him some smelts straight and see if he took them without the movement provided by the live fish. I had to wait until today becaue they were frozen and I didn't feel like trying to thaw a few.

So I grabbed two good size smelts and decided for fun and grins to try to hand feed them to him. I dangled the smelt in front of him.... ready to drop it if he suddenly grabbed it. But he surprized me. I wish I could have taped this. He moved upward parallel to the fish smelling it and gently rubbing his chin on it. I thought maybe he'd get up to my fingers and then strike. What he did was about half way up (these fish are between 3 and 4" in length) he turned his head so he was now faceing it... opened his mouth a little bit... and GENTLY took the fish. After a few minutes - after he had slowly and carefully swallowed the first fish... I gave him the second and he did the exact same thing. It was like he was being a gentalman about it.

Of course this might be a problem when he is eventaly placed with Big Momma... becaues she is a VERY VERY agressive eater.
When I started with the smelts I tryed hand feeding her as well... she got over excited and struck SO hard that I dropped the fish. I think she close mouth struck as well. Then she staired at it... I decied to re pick it up and when I did she stuck again... this time missing and biteing herself. New food gets her spastic almost.
So I just left it in the cage and checked back later to find it gone.

Well yesterday I tryed salmon pieces for the first time. Now I have recently been useing plastic see through deli cups because they are a bit easyer to manuver then the big ceramic bowl. Thing is if she is excited ... she doesn't go up over the top. So... because she smelled a new food she started bumping and rubbing against the side of this deli bowl with her mouth half open. I was tempted to show her... by picking her up and dangling her over the bowl... I had done this before when I tryed putting earthworms in a smaller cage and useing the smaller cage as the food bowl (was trying to find something they couldn't get out of.) I had no problems then, because she is pretty good about being picked up, but she also is used to worms. So I thought I'd better not try it when she was extra excited.

Eventually she figured it out... and posed over the top of the water for a few seconds stareing inside... then she dove in and grabbed one of the two pieces of salmon... which btw had sunk to the bottom, and remember there were moving goldfish as well... she delibrately picked out the new food. And then after that she savagely attacked the rest of the food.

So if I put these guys together I may still have to feed seperate... otherwise Racer may not get anything. I have noticed that he doesn't always go eat right away eather.

On the baby front... I put itty bitty pices of salmon in with 4 of them (the 5th I was trying to get her to keep her worms down ) I am useing gallan milk tops as "dishs" so I don't put everythin in the water (some had already eatten smelt pieces this way) But I messed up on one and accidenlty droped it about a millimeter from his head insead of in the dish. He insinctively grabbed it (this is my male florida blue stripe baby) and then sat there for about a min ... I figure he was thinking "What the heck is this?" presently he decided it was edible and ate it.
I had two others eat the salmon later so... I figure this is a good thing... getting varity in them when they are young.

Ok I'll sign off now... I just found it funny how differently my snakes approch food.

- Sharon