What should I be feeding my fatheads? Up till now I've been using catfish pellets, grinding some up and leaving some whole to float and soften. They seem to be eating it but I would prefer something smaller, tailored to them. Any suggestions?

Hillbilly

If your pond is not exclusively for the grow out of fatheads they should be able to get what they need on natural feed. However some of the major feed manufacturers make feed that is as small as a fine powder. I know Aquamax is available that small. It's used for trout starter feed. Be aware it's more expensive but a bag would probably last you a long time depending on how much feeding you are doing.

TN Hillbilly,

I feed mine the same thing, and they are absolutely thriving on it. I don't bother to grind it, as it softens to mush within 5 minutes.

I'v just used the plain 32% pellets. They mob it and chew pieces off as it moistens.

Looks like this.

TN H - If you really want a finer sized economical feed for fatheads try grinding your regular fish pellets in a household blender. Wash the blender before your wife makes smoothies in it. I sometimes mix day-old dried bread with the pellets to keep high fat pellet meal from caking in the blender. 32% protein pellets should grind up okay in a blender. You can grind quite a bit of food for them in 20-30 minutes. The amount of food that I can grind in 30 minutes (around one cup at a time) will last me about a month for feeding several thousand minnows 0.5"-3" long.

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. I thought a little feed wouldn't hurt since the pond was new and I wasn't sure how much natural food would be available, but I was amazed at how fast life started appearing at the first sign of of a pool. Toadpoles by the million it appears. I need something in there to eat them, or I'm afraid I'll be overrun with toads this summer. They are too big for the BG/RE I plan to put in this weekend but I'm hoping the CC might prey on them some? Any thoughts on this?

TN Hillbilly,

"Over run by toads?" That sounds pretty life threatening!

Seriously nature has a way of reducing numbers of critters. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Your right Cecil, if the CC's don't get them there will be a "baby toad buffet" for the wild turkeys. Yum!

Yeah, I used to have the fathead/feed ballet, too. Now, if one ever gets close enough to a pellet for even a whiff, a big BG or a LMB snatches him right up. They always seemed to figure out how to eat the things, even if they had to mill around for a bit while they softened...

How big is your fathead pond?

ewest - are some of those fish in the above photo mosquito fish?

Bill some are gams as you noticed.

I couldn't help it. I immediately thought, how big is your pond fathead?

Sorry.

Not a fathead pond, just a new pond stocked with fatheads.

I had a similar, I opened to the web page and read the banner "Goldern shiner fish fry" clicked on the "todays active topics" button thinking, I thought those were minnows.

It IS Friday.

Bruce could be talked into having one of those; I know he doesn't mind picking out the Y-bones when eating Grass Carp.

Who's bringing the baby corn?

That almost looks like a good batch of Smelt I used to catch and fry up!!! mmmmmm mmmmm good!! :p