- Joined
- Aug 10, 2006
- Messages
- 67
Ok, I've had Ocho since around mid July. Normally I had been feeding Live Purple and/or Striped shore crabs that I would catch after a surf session. I would get around 20 which would last a few weeks. I hadn't been able to get to the beach for awhile and I was running a little low on crabs so I wondered if the frozen shrimp route would work. Went to Albertson's seafood dept. and got 5 nice sized frozen shrimp. Cost me 60 cents. Next time Ocho was out for a stroll, I got out a shrimp and let it thaw in water, peeled it and went for the hand fed method. Now I've had hand contact with Ocho many times but this was weird. As I got near with shrimp in hand, Ocho swarmed and covered my hand as usual. But this time, I could feel the beak grazing over my hand and fingers giving it little test nibbles all over. Not biting or hurting at all, but just exploring. I'm thinking maybe Ocho could sense the shrimp in my hand and was feeling around with the beak until it found the right texture: shrimp! It felt sooo weird and freaky but I didn't want to pull away and put a negative spin on my hand feeding experiment. I figured whats the worst that could happen......getting bitten. Big whoop, it isn't gonna kill me, just a little pain and sting. But there was no bite and Ocho seemed to love that shrimp. So now I go back and forth with live crab and frozen shrimp. It sure is nice to not have to bury my hands and arms in the tank every single day pulling out empty crab carcass. Plus I feel kinda bad taking all these little crabs from the wild. Also, if I know my hands and arms aren't totally clean, sometimes I will feed with the shrimp on the end of a stick. (which is 2 kabob sticks taped end to end) Here are a few pics of the experience. (sorry, the only thing that was available was the crappy camera phone)
