Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Feeding my fish pellets?

Hey everyone. I am thinking of starting a feeding program, but how do I go about getting the fish to the food if you will??? Will they eventually just find it? I have a deer feeder with a timer that I can use but i don't want it spraying food everywhere if the fish are not going to eat it anyway? If I am just feeding BG and RES how many seconds should I put the feeder on at first? Or should I throw some food out there by hand just to see if they will even eat it??

Thanks,

RC, as you may have read in one of the threads here, I've recently started hand feeding my fish and it took awhile but they're beginning to really like it. I have an area where there are always a pretty good number of small to mid-sized BG hanging out, and so I started by just tossing in a really small handful of pellets. They were sort of indifferent at first, but gradually got a little more interested. Turned out that they didn't like the brand I was using (TSC Farm Pond Mix I think is what it was called) so I switched over to a 42% protein food made by Burris. The fish went from grabbing the pellets and spitting them back out with the TSC stuff to inhaling the Burris pellets moments after they hit the water. It's been really fun and I'm now considering going the route of a feeder at some point, but right now it's not a big priority. I know a regular feeding program is important if you want to grow your fish well, and I'll likely get to that point. For now, though, we are at the farm pretty regularly and I'll typically feed them twice during the course of spending a full day out there and at least once if we're there for a shorter period. It's a lot of fun to do and the kids love tossing the pellets out. We see swirls all over as the feed drifts around and the fish all nail it.

So, I guess the point of this wandering post is that if you can find a place that you have a decent congregation of fish, you could start there with some hand feeding to see how they like it and get them used to being fed, then maybe move to your feeder idea to see how that works and just go from there.

Hey Todd,

Thanks for the advice I figured I would start slow just wasn't for sure what to do. I am not at my pond very often maybe once every couple of weeks so it's kind of hard to figure out how I need to proceed. I would like to try though. I will try the hand feeding and see what happens thanks for the heads on the feed too!

I've had good luck w/ Purina gamefish chow: main reason is it floats to watch feeding and it has a variable size pellet for different size fish to feed effectively. ($19.00, 50# bag) I can't help w/ the feeder though, I do mine by hand...when I can't do it, I beg the wife...(If I pester her enough, maybe she'll buy an auto feeder. I'll be asking for your advice then)

For some reason I was thinking you lived at your pond, RC. My bad. The hand feeding bit may at least give you an idea, though, of how the fish react, but I bet unless they started off as pellet trained, it might take a bit more regularity to get them going than once every couple of weeks. Just speculating on that point, though. You know, if you had a week or so that you were going to spend there, you might be able to make some good progress with daily feeding efforts. Then, if they take to it, you could hook up the feeder and give that a try. Keep us posted. I had a blast getting my BG interested in pellets and now, like I said, it's something the whole family looks forward to when we go out.

I heard that pellet trained fish will nip at your toes if you use the pond for swimming?
True?

I haven't experienced it, but we've only been in the water at our pond a few times now. My daughters have swum the most and never mentioned being nipped at, and at 7 and 10, they'd definitely be complaining if the fish were after them! I have heard that it's a fairly typical behavior with BG, but they are incapable of doing any damage so it's not really anything to be worried about. Now GSF on the other hand, with their huge mouth gape, could probably take a leg off. Or at least they and the members of the GSA would say so!

Hey guys thanks for the advice. Todd the GSF thing that was too funny! They could take a pinkie toe that's for sure!! I will let you guys know how it goes once I start feeding. I am also attempting to get electricity at my pond this next month as well. So that will be nice too. Gives you a whole lot more ability to do things.

Only if your toes look like pellets and you're swimming in the area of the feeder right before it's due to dispense the feed!

RC51, it would be a lot easier to train the fish if you were to feed the same time every day. If using a feeder, I'd start with the lowest possible setting an hour after sunrise on a daily baisis. You might get quicker results if you were to use a good quality food, and iffen it was me, I'd start out with smaller pellets, say 1/8"-3/16" maximum size, say AquaMax 500 size.

esshup,

Thanks for your help! I think I can set my timer to 3 seconds minimum. I'll see what I can do. It is harder being how's I am not out there all the time and the auto feeder would at least feed at the same time every day like you said. Thanks.