I have tried thawed out pinkies, but I don't want to feed them to him too much. I have 3 in my freezer for special occasions. Yeah, he does some pretty funny things when he eats. A lot of the time he is luring the crickets and even tries to get the ones in the container outside his tank, but it takes him forever to actually just take one. He was even trying t lure the one that was on his face lol. But then there are times he grabs them as soon as I drop them in front of them. I have been feeding him 6-10 crickets a day, and I think he ate about 12 today. So I am not worried about fattening him up quicker, he should be good this way