so feed when there hungry or scheduale

[BOWSER11788]

i usally feed adults a medium rat every 2 weeks, well for abou a month and 1/2 its been doing fine, only see him when i get him out, very friendly tolarant snake, sounds stupid, but i swear that things got my brains than some people. any way he usally stay in his hide and when he smells the rat he pokes his head, but its been about 8 days since last feeding and he's out roaming the cage. he's been doing it all day. temps and everything are fine. so is he hungry? should i feed him or what till the actual feeding date

[jason79]

I feed my young ones every 5 days and adults every 7 you say its been 8 days how often do you feed?

[Kaorte]

I feed my young ones every 5 days and adults every 7 you say its been 8 days how often do you feed?

The first sentence of the OP's post says they feed every 2 weeks.


If your snake is sexually mature (probably is if its eating medium rats) then he could be looking for a mate. As long as the snake is eating consistently I wouldn't worry too much. Maybe you could feed a small rat once a week?

[kc261]

A lot of people recommend a small rat every week, but I think that has a lot to do with being easier on the keeper rather than better for the snake.

It seems that BPs that are fed small meals on a weekly basis will tend to stay on that schedule quite nicely, although there are still some that will fast during breeding season. On the other hand, BPs that are fed larger meals will some times go on a fast to allow their bodies to catch up. Fasting does not appear to be bad for the snakes, but it is often stressful and inconvenient for the keeper.

If your snake is doing well on one med rat every 2 weeks, then there is no need to change.

[BOWSER11788]

i would feed small but i have a small supply of medium, actually about 8 to go through, i will try to feed tonight, and if he takes it extend his schedule

[seeya205]

What age is the snake? A young snake should be on at least a weekly schedule but a mature snake can go 10-14 days!

[tnelsonflorida]

I feed on a schedule. I use the Viper RTS and the old school way af marking the calender in case I for get and lose track of my days.

[WingedWolfPsion]

I've fed large, medium, small, etc--I haven't noticed a difference. Snakes usually fast when they're going into shed, and tend to feed irregularly or fast over the winter. Rarely, one will just take a week or two off, but it doesn't appear linked to any particular food size. My biggest female will eat large rats, as many as you want to give her--we had to cut her feeding schedule back to keep her from becoming overweight.

One thing that's always surprised me about herpetoculture is how few actual studies folks do. I think it comes down to time...folks just don't have the time to keep meticulous records and cross-reference them, when they're cleaning cages all the time.
People notice a trend, and mention it...but it's really just something one keeper noticed and theorized about. There's no way to know whether it will hold true across the board.

This sometimes carries on to extremes--take the egg-turning myth, for example. Someone suggested that it was plausible that because of the way reptile eggs develop, turning them could result in smothering the embryo. Now everyone believes this. The few actual experiments done on it have revealed...nothing. No change in hatch rates when eggs are turned, and with several different species, including ball pythons. The theory was wrong after all.
How did a theory turn into a well-established and repeated fact in the herp community? Just the telephone game...to this day, most people don't realize that it's been disproven for at least 3 different common species, and thus it's very unlikely to be true for any of them.

So I ask...do ball pythons really tend to fast more if they're fed larger prey? Are you sure?
Maybe someone did a study on it--if so, I'd be really interested in seeing the data...but if not...well, you'll just have to try it yourself and see.

[jacob985]

i feed mine when he starts searching for food and it just so happens to be about the same time every week so he is cooperating with me haha.

[BOWSER11788]

thanx to all, he was hungry, fed him, and he went back in his hide and havn't seen him since yesterday, and that was only a poke of the head to see why i was over in his direction