Feeding whole silver sides

why are you cutting the silversides? are you trying to fillet them or are the whole pieces too big for the fish currently? in general it's best to give them the whole fish if they can manage to swallow it--
--solomon

i cut up a silverside into about 3 pieces when fedding all of my fish, including my two 8-9 inch florida gars. they eat all of the parts, guts and all . . .i would not start trying to feed whole silversides, until they can actually consume a whole silverside and i'd think that would be awhile, because gars have narrow mouths. they have to move their food around and align it with their narrow mouths before actually swallowing.

Bennlfer;3863201; said:

I cut the fish in half long ways then remove the spine and head. I was initially afraid of them choking thats why i cut them.

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wow...i only cut mine into 3 pieces because they're too long to fit in my gar's mouths, right now. i lay the silver down and cut it into 3 pieces -- head, mid-body and tail. you might be working too hard. heads and spines are OK for your fish to eat.

a lot of this is common sense. if the gar is not big enough to feasibly take down a whole silversides, then don't feed it whole silversides. at the same time, the feeder fish size is different depending on the supplier, package, or just the size of silversides you buy. if you are feeding pretty small silversides, then your gar can likely take them down whole if it is 6" or larger (silversides on the "small" end of the spectrum are around 2-3" long). for larger silversides, either cut them into pieces or just wait until your gar is larger...at 9-11", most gars can take down the silversides readily available at LFS...use common sense in judgment though, and if you get a silversides that appears to be too big for your gar...chop it up.

all that being said, there is no need to cut the head and spine out as these contain nutritious materials for the gar as well--
--solomon