<< I fed my darters their normal chopped up earthworms, which are fed every
once in a while. I noticed my oldest, and favorite darter had one stuck in
his mouth, it was apparently too big for him. I thought he would be fine,
but, I made sure to keep my eye on him just in case. I started to worry when
he started breathing heavily, and the worm had not gone down. After a little
bit, I could not see the worm anymore, but it was still in there, and he was
breathing more heavily than before. Then, all hell broke lose, he stared
floating on his stomach, and his gills were not moving from what i could
see. >>
Yeah, I've been taking advantage of the rain in my area to gather up
earthworms and feed some to my logperch and blackside darter. They seem to do
better in the past with eating them then they did before; when chewing on
many of the earthworm pieces I could observe the jaws seem to "spring back" ,
it looked almost like they were chewing on rubber. Some fishes can certainly
choke on earthworms; especially if they are smaller fishes and especially
from pices of bigger, older, tougher, worms. The smaller, more tender red
worms work best for them in my opinion, plus fishes seem to like their taste
better. And they don't tend to choke on them as much.
<< Then, he gradually came-to, and started
looking for food, again. That was yesterday, and he is as healthy as can be,
now. That was a good lesson, and something I could not have learned as good
from a book. I had never heard of anyone doing that before. I'm just glad my
beauty is doing fine! :) -Dan >>
Glad to hear it Dan! What kind of darter was he?
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