Yes they eat by themselves, we normally feed them muisdisse (not sure the english name, check picture) about 2-3 a week. I have the muisdisse for sale as well but normal mice, rats and lizards will also work. They can be put on canned dogfood but it makes them overweight, thats why the parents died, they became to fat to jump from tree to tree and fell on the paving. one after the other....