I was surfing oscar videos on youtube (as a side note - search for "oscar fish stane" - it's a great video:)

anyway, I saw the videos with the most views and ratings were of oscars eating live mice. I regretfully watched one in horror - I felt like I was at the scene of a bad car accident and rubber-necked to look. Is this common practice? I wouldn't think that Oscars eat mice in the wild. How would it get digested? wouldn't the mouse kicking and scratching down it's throat hurt the fish?

My little guys are not getting mice - they'll have to survive on worms, bugs, and commercially prepared foods.

no body could tell for sure that huge oscar in the wild will not grab a
moving rats or rodents in the water but it is possible. i had done it before,
i used to give my oscars small mice without any problem. the one that create
problem was chicken giblets that didn't digest and cause death.

if feeder fish purchased from the LFS are discouraged because of disease; wouldn't the same hold true for mice?

the way i understand, water diseases is different from land diseases.
that is why when we get worms, crickets, and bug, we are careful against
insecticide only. other than that, fish would be fine.

in my case, i just tried feeding mice caught in my trap at home.
try to look at the mouse tail protruding the mouth

The way i see it is if a mouse fell out of a tree in the wild and landed in water with a hungry oscar under it, chance is it would be eaten. I am not sure if a mouse would be considered a healthy diet but i do know that if a wild oscar died cos it ate a mouse no one would notice. i would notice if mine died so i won't chance it. if I was to feed feeder fish I would certainly breed something like guppies myself and not risk buying them. i would also feed the feeder fish pellets before I fed them to my fish to make sure my fish got a healthy diet. for me thats as far to much trouble, I don't like watching a perfectly good healthy fish die so I can watch, when my fish can live very well on mixed other foods. i don't have a problem eating or killing animals so if I found out live mice was a very good oscar food i would use it. at the moment all I read and see points me to mix the diet. if i feed fish its chopped human food or prawns. Meats are risky I have also lost fish probably due to poor food, like Paul. I tried chicken and found my oscar stopped feeding. I have also had the same happen if I over feed on prawns. it could just be chance and my poor luck but I am more careful with the way I feed and what I feed now.

IMHO terrestrial protein is different than aquatic protein.
The occasional mouse falling from a tree will be eaten by an oscar in the wild, but seeing we can give it a proper diet without resolving to feeding mice and other mammals I wouldn't advice feeding mice.
As an occasional treat maybe.
As their diet in the wild exist mostly of bugs, I rather feed worms and bugs.
Mine freaks out the most when I feed him something Big like a May-bug!
He goes wild over those!

everything i have read and learned about oscars tells me that fatty flesh = bad for oscar livers. mammal flesh is pretty fatty. however having said that... when i had my king snake... often it wouldnt eat when fed... and the frozen mice dont re-freeze well... and my oscar had no trouble disposing of the uneaten rodent for me lol... altho i now advice against such actions.


lol noddy... we have these things called water bugs (american cockroach)... (not to be confused with the little german roaches) that are about 2 inches long... and my oscar will batter itself on the glass... and try to go thru it... to get at one of them lol... they are like its favorite snack!

Oscars have trouble processing animals fats and if they are fed too much of it they can get sick and die, something to do with the liver not being able to process the fats.

As for the wild mouse, i suspect a wild oscar would be lucky to find one mouse like this. If you started feeding mice to your oscar you would do it with some regularity, and this is how your oscar would get ill

i don't think i would try to feed my o's any mice, they gave enough trouble digesting grubs

what about frogs? just came across this one on youtube

That looks like a very large fish or he's a small man )))). I have been told i can feed frogs to the arowana. I haven't yet and don't really intend to cos disease risk again. I would much rather feed frogs than mouse that's for sure as in the wild frogs would be on the menu for oscars. where there's water there's frogs.

marcus wrote:

i concur with marcus. frog is better than mice. but i was told also that there is
a certain kind of toad that could kill oscar. frogs that laid eggs in string format
are not good feeders, those in foamy bubbles do.

aside from that, i would not give my oscar big fully dressed frogs;
i'd rather take it by myself, either stewed or fried