For the breeders, How often

[Raverthug]

I was wondering how often you feed your snaks once they his full breeding weight. I know alot of people feed every 3-4 if powerfeeding or every 7 days. But once the weight is up how often do you feed to maintain the weight?

[tsdsbd]

now im not a breeder but ive done alot of research, i know the standard feeding is once every 5-7 days, and ive heard that power-feeding is not really recommended, as its unhealthy for the snake, so maybe slightly more (4-6 days maybe) would be a good amount, i would personally go with every 5

[JenEric Reptiles]

For me I feed when ever they will take food.I have a female when I got her she was 750g went off feed for 8 months went down to 550g then went back on feed again.So I have to pump her with food because she went off feed again.Ball pythons are picky eaters........it may not be healthy to power feed but I feel that when its feeding time I need to feed if my snakes dont want food they wont take it.But im not going to overfeed for breeding purposes.......just to get them up to par..........I have snakes that feed on a 5-7 day scheduale. And have snakes that go off and on feed.I keep a very precise log on each of my snakes.Day,time,size of rodent,color,wieght,live frozen etc,rat or asf etc.I deal a lot with problem feeders.I have a albino,and a fire that refused for the previous owner as hatchlings that eat regulaly now on thier own a lesser that only eats asf's but keeping a log helps me to feed and knowing what my animals prefer since i breed my own rodents it helps with selection for my snakes. Each animal is on a case by case basis so its good to keep logs since i have so many snakes.
Some people may agree with what I do some may not we all do what works best for us.......I hope this helps!

[Raverthug]

Any one else?

[Jeremy78]

For me I'd rather have a healthy snake then an obese snake. For a snake about 0-1 year old you should feed once every 5 days. 2-3 years once a week. And 3+ once every 7-10 days.
I'd rather have a snake take 4 years to get to breeding size and breed for 10 years then get there in 3 and die in 4.

[Raverthug]

Im more wondering how often the breeders feed to maintain weight.

[Alice]

We feed most of our snakes, juveniles and adults, once per week. We also feed only small or medium rats . . . . never large or jumbos. We've found that this size and schedule keeps our adults at a good breeding weight (females between 2000 and 2800 grams) for us.

Now, we do have some very large girls (over 3500 grams) that we watch carefully; if they start to gain, we might take them down to eating every other week for awhile. A snake diet if you will. If some females get too big, they seem to lay smaller clutches for us.

Ideal weight may also be influenced by where you live. We're in Central Florida where we usually don't get real cold in the winter and we bake in the summer.

[Kaorte]

I feed my adults a small rat once per week.

[Repsrul]

I feed all of my Ball Pythons juvenile to adult once a week.

For the ones that have gone off feed for a few months I still only feed once a week. I may offer them their normal prey and some thing a little smaller. For instance, if the ball python normally eats a small rat I will also offer them a rat weaned. If they take it when I first introduce it to them great if not I do not push them to take it.

[moravaguy]

i feed my girls every 7 days and my boys, either the frozen that are left over, or every 10 days just cause they need to be fit and trim, and they get anything from mice to med. rats. now i gotta girl that is at 3200grams right now but her breeding weight was 4200 and i feed her large or medium f/t and small live. thats just pretty much what i do