John, did the SMB learn to feed pretty quickly, or did it take longer than the BG?
I raised these SMB from fingerlings and started feeding them starter feed from the time I brought them home and put them in my forage pond. They were on feed at the hatchery (Keo in Arkansas) and I continued with some Optimal starter. Then I went to Optimal BG Jr as they got bigger. So they were accustomed to being hand fed from the beginning.
Story of my raising HSB starting about 2/3 the way down this page and several pages after. Gives the feeds I used as well as a link to NEDOC's thread on raising HSB. It was his experience raising HSB and my visit to his pond that got me excited about raising some HSB myself.