Clumsy baby

[kibakiba]

Hmmm, I cant seem to find "sockeye salmon" on either list. Unless, of course, I'm overlooking it, which is a possibility... I am blonde...
I guess I just wont feed it to them, I don't know much about fish, and I don't want to risk harming my babies... They'll have to make due with worms until we can find some regular salmon and tilapia.

[guidofatherof5]

A good safe way to look at the situation.

[ConcinusMan]

Sockeye is pretty much the same as most any other salmon caught in WA and so it's listed under "Salmon, wild caught WA" and I'm sure that's what you have since runs were up 260% this year over last. Heavy PCB contamination in all wild WA salmon but also mercury although at lower levels than many fish. Let's put it this way, it's not recommended safe for an adult human (175 lb man) to consume more than one serving (a few ounces) per month. PCB's are known neurotoxins. (bad for the nervous system) Any salmon species in WA, OR, or CA is going to have significant amounts. Wild pacific salmon is #16 on the list of the most contaminated fish. It's ridiculous to harvest and sell that poison especially considering that all pacific salmon are threatened or in danger of extinction.

I won't even eat one serving of wild pacific salmon a year, much less give it to my snakes. Farmed atlantic salmon, farmed rainbow trout, wild alaskan salmon, or tilapia are much safer.

[kibakiba]

Indeed. The salmon I had originally was farmed, and the coho was wild caught. I don't give the snakes much more than 5 small pieces of coho in the dish. Tiny also wont eat anything but coho, or something that has coho on it, scenting doesn't work for him.

I'll have my mom look for some farmed fish next time we get groceries. There was farmed trout at the place we went but I couldn't remember if it was safe or not, and since I don't like it, I didn't bother.

[ConcinusMan]

What kind of trout I wonder? Steelhead, which is the same fish as rainbow trout after it's been out to sea, tastes wonderful. Like very mild salmon. Farmed steelhead is OK to feed to your snakes. If they don't have it, ask for it and they might be willing to order some with their next shipment.

Keep trying other fish. Tiny will eventually eat other fish, trust me. Usually when they first start out eating or they start after a long fast, they get stuck on one particular fish at first but eventually, that changes.

[kibakiba]

It was steelhead. For me, trout tastes nothing like salmon. My taste buds are just different and I'm really picky. I'll write it down for my mom. I hope Tiny will take to a different fish. The coho we got was a tiny slab of it for 8 dollars and I don't want to pay that if I can pay less for healthier stuff. It seems like the coho is the most expensive of all the fish at the stores.

[ConcinusMan]

And farmed steelhead tastes nothing like trout. It tastes like salmon but is cheaper and those are the reasons why people buy it, at least that's why they buy it in my area. The farmers know this, and even feed the fish something that makes their flesh pink so it looks like salmon too.

Your taste buds aren't necessarily "different". The fresh water version of steelhead, which is rainbow trout definitely tastes like trout. It tastes like salmon only after it's lived in saltwater and has become steelhead.

[kibakiba]

I mean, both rainbow and steelhead taste disgusting to me. Regardless of where it's been. It tastes watery and bitter to me. So I'm sure that my taste buds are pretty different.

[ConcinusMan]

Another thing I like about using steelhead is that it doesn't smell like fish and so won't stink up your house like salmon does when you are preparing to feed it to your snakes. Heck, it barely has any smell even when you're cooking it.

[kibakiba]

Then the snakes wouldn't like it They always smell the fish when I walk into the room with the fish and the cutting board and start rubbing their noses on the glass and begging. It's really cute. If I don't have the salmon in with the tilapia, worms and pinky parts, they don't seem as interested and they don't eat as much. Each f the babies get at the very least 5 pieces of food. Ember, since he's so big, gets to have 5-10 pieces. It barely makes a bulge in his stomach if he only has 5 regular sized pieces. If he doesn't get fed enough he starts attacking his sister and Tiny. He did that yesterday, Snap just finished swallowing a piece of pinky and Ember randomly charged at her and bit her head... And after feeding all of them I held Tiny for a little bit and when I put him back, Ember bit him also. I washed my hands of the fish before picking Tiny up, so he didn't smell like food. He's been acting very strange lately.