Fish & Gelatin: A Total Success!

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Well, yesterday, I decided to go ahead and tackle the home made garter food idea involving fish, vitamin powder, and gelatin! I am proud to announce that even though I pretty much winged it, it was a total success! I made two batches, and tried a different water method for each. Surprisingly, knox gelatin does not give instructions on how to prepare just straight gelatin!!! Only how to make fruit jello. How annoying! So I was kind of in the dark and searches online gave me totally conflicting methods. Most said do not boil the gelatin. So I did not. The first batch, I added the gelatin directly to VERY warm water and poured it into the mixer with the fish. The gelatin was instantly congealing in the hot water and I was concerned I had ruined it, but in the end it turned out OKAY. The second batch, I sprinkled the gelatin packets directly into the mixer onto the fish, blended it a bit, THEN added some warm water. That method produced a more consistent texture. So for my directions, I will be using that mehod.

Along the way, I took some photos of the process. First, the necessities:
I had:

-1 lb of Salmon (i took the skin off because it will get stuck, but don't -waste that skin!! cut it up and feed the scraps to the snakes!)
-1 lb of Tilapia
-Reptocal - a calcium supplement with other vitamins including thiamine
-Reptivite - a vitamin powder which also includes thiamine
-4 packets of knox gelatin, 2 for each pound of mixture
-Stainless Steel Scissors - much easier to chunk the fish with these than a knife
- A Smoothie Making Machine



I started by taking the scissors and wearing rubber gloves (I hate having messy hands of all things!) I chunked the salmon and tilapia into containers.



I then took out half of each container and mixed them into the opposite containers, so that each container holds half salmon, half tilapia. Following that, I took a teaspoon and added to each container 1 leveled teaspoon of Reptocal, and 1 leveled teaspoon of Reptivite. Each container is holding 1 pound of fish.


I then began to run the faucet on hot while I dumped one container of fish and vitamins into the smoothie maker. I took two packets of knox gelatin and dumped them into the mixer on top of the fish. I took a spoon and mixed it around a little. Once the water from the faucet was at its hottest, I added 2/3 of a cup to the mixture and quickly turned it on. It minced up very quickly but was just a tad too thick, so as I was mixing it I would have to turn it off and stir it up with a spoon and adding tiny bits of water at a time until the mixer would consistently run without stopping up. At this point, the mixture was about the consistency of cooked oatmeal and was pourable, but just barely. The reason for adding water little bits at a time is because you idealy want the fish concentration to the gelatin to be as high as possible, because the garters will not get anything out of the water content, except... well, water!! As soon as it was a consistent smooth texture, I turned off the mixer. It looked like bright pink mashed potatoes! I then quickly poured/spooned it into small ziploc freezer bags, squeezed out the air, and stacked them perfectly flat into the refridgerator. The thickness of each was about 1/2 an inch. I left them there overnight, and when I came home this morning, I found perfectly formed Salmon/Tilapia Jello Shooters! I carefully allowed the Salmon Jello pancakes to slide out onto some waxpaper where I took a knife and sliced them horizontally, and then diagonally to create tapered edges that are easier for garters to start eating, much like the head of something is.


I then portioned all of these chunks into freezer bags so that I can thaw one out at a time and feed all that day. Each of these baggies is probably a tad over 1/4 lb. in weight. This will feed my garter and water snakes for a month (I have so many! haha) or a bit longer really because I will alternate it every so often with some night crawlers or pinkies. This however, could be fed as a staple diet because it is vitamin/calcium enriched. This cost me about $15 to make.


Before departing my house tonight for my boyfriend's, I decided to let Marcy, my female Checkered Garter be the taste tester. I had the boyfriend bring her out still in her favorite hidey and offered it to her. She wholeheartedly approves and had two pieces! I find the nice thing about it is that it's so easy for them to swallow, even if the piece is slightly too wide, anything that does not fit into their mouth simply peels away without them having to struggle! So as my departing picture, here is Marcy modeling (ingesting, rather) the completed product! I am very pleased with this mixture and I WILL be using this from now on! I hope you all enjoyed and I strongly encourage everyone to give it a try!

[anji1971]

Way to go, Shannon!
It's so cool to see how this is catching on. It really is easy once you give it a try, and the snakes do seem to like the stuff.
I used the gelatin with freshly boiled water from the kettle. It stayed liquid long enough to get into the mixture nicely, without cooking the fish!

[ssssnakeluvr]

I boiled water and added it to the gelatin powder....worked just fine, although a few bits didn't dissolve, just pulled them out with a spoon and tossed them. then poured the still watery solution in to the blender with the fish and powder already in it and blended my salmon jello!!!!

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Next project:.... adding vodka to this mixture!!

Garter snake lovers party at my house!!!! Everyone is invited. Free unlimited salmon jello shots for all!!!

[reptile3]

Next project:.... adding vodka to this mixture!!

Garter snake lovers party at my house!!!! Everyone is invited. Free unlimited salmon jello shots for all!!!

I am there!!!

[ssssnakeluvr]

count me in too!!!!!

[snakems]

how nice of you to take pictures of this process for everyone!

glad it was a success!

[Snaky]

I tried this also before. My marcianus loved it, but the cyrtopsis and concinnus for example didn't eat it at all. So for some it was good food, while others would'nt touch it.

So keep us updated on who likes it and who doesn't

[drache]

far out, Shannon
planning to try this today - without the vodka
my friend who has the xenochrophis will help
little Caramel is a salmon kind of guy
here's one thing I'm wondering about:
the original recipe calls for trout with head and guts removed which leaves the rest of the bones in the mix. does that mean one ought to add extra calcium to the mix?
on that same note - when feeding this primarily, might it not be worthwhile to batches that are higher in calcium for younger, more rapidly growing animals?

[olive oil]

Thanks Shannon, that was so cool to be able to see everything while you were preparing it!