Hand Feeding

Just curious how many other members hand feed their axolotls. I usually feed mine by dropping a worm in front of mines nose with my hands, but today he just seemed to recognize my hand meant food, and swam straight up to my fingers and sucked up the worm right out of my hand.

i do.

When i first had my tank i had a fine gravel in it that was supposed to be > 1 mm - i always felt a lot of it was bigger than 1 mm, and also a little rough.

So i was paranoid about ingestion. I figured hand feeding would at least reduce the amount of ingestion.

I have sand now, but i still like to feed by hand.

My guys also associate me and my hand with food. In fact, if i move about the room or near the tank, they will watch and even follow me - only me. I can even make them swim up and down the wall of the tank by wiggling my fingers on the outside (when they are in the mood )

If i put my hand IN the tank, the are straight over and biting like crazy.

Now i have sand in the tank, i'll leave a worm in their hide if they dont take it straight away from my hand, but most of the time they just take it

I do, almost sheerly for the fun of it, besides one of my axolotls will RARELY find food that doesn't come from my hand. Like blackdog they only watch for me and follow me, unless a friend is doing the feeding, but there still more hesitant. Try wiggling your tongue in front of em, mine go nuts, sometimes even biting at the glass! Haha...

I also like to hand-feed my axies. Gives a little "bonding time" for me, I suppose, lol. They've come to the comcludion that when I stick my hands in, it usually means something yummy is coming their way. XD I remember the first time one of them "bit" me. I let out a- very girly- yelp, and my dad came running to ask what had happened. When he found out, he just about died laughing. -_-; The yelp was more in surprise, though. I wasn't expecting to be gummed to death. Haha!

I have plants and such in the tank, so I do alot of "landscaping." My axies don't yet know the difference between OMGFOODTIMES and landscaping, so they always scramble over to investigate my hands. It usually ends up in a axie dog-pile and them giving me those "hungry" faces of theirs. lol

I tong-feed. I like to keep my hands (and possible contamination) out of the tank as much as possible.