switching from one week to two weeks?

[alykoz]

I have been feeding my girl every week live and they have been pretty big meals. I noticed last time I held her she looked a little chunky, and it would be easier for me if I could feed her once every two weeks instead of every week.
have any of you ever made this change before?
she's about 3 months old so is she old enough to slow her feeding schedule?
any known complications I might be dealing with?
thanks!

[Expensive hobby]

I'm no expert by any means, but 3 months isn't that old and he/she is still in a growing phase of life. Once a week is not too frequent if you stick to appropriate sized prey.

As a general rule for BP's feed 10-15% body weight prey items and it should leave a noticeable lump in her body without stretching her scales.

For a 3 month old snake every 2 weeks is too far apart. Stick to once a week.


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[babyeater]

is chunky even a thing for snakes? I mean, how do you really define that? I'm just not sure whether or not it's that easy for snakes to become literally "overweight/obese." I'm a newb, so if anyone has any thoughts on this I'd be interested.

[BrianB801]

At that age your snake should be eating every week, but properly sized rodents. 10-15 percent of snakes body weight. Anything bigger is too big, even if they can digest it, it isn't healthy and it causes their young still developing bodies to work harder than it should to digest.

[Eric Alan]

At 3 months old, all of my girls were still eating every 4 days. My oldest (not my biggest), at 8 months, is the first to start slowing down and I'm starting to think just now about moving to weekly feedings. My others, between 4 and 7 months, are showing zero signs of slowing down and I will continue feeding them every 4 days until they tell me otherwise.

Like Expensive hobby said, appropriately sized meals are the key. There aren't many good reasons, especially while they should be growing like weeds, to keep their bellies overly full or overly empty. Frequent smaller meals are more beneficial than infrequent larger meals.

The only reasons I can think of to back down to biweekly meals right now would be ones that are more beneficial to you than to them, IMO.

[JMinILM]

It's too early. Adults can do ok on every other week, but babies do best on more frequent meals.

[Mephibosheth1]

I was wondering this same question, but my snake is 2 years old...is it considered an adult yet, or would it still need weekly feeding??

[Crazymonkee]

I just need to ask... why is it so difficult to feed an animal once a week?
I feed my dog everyday, ferrets everyday, rabbit 15 times a day lol.
Seriously feeding an animal that young every two weeks??
I feed Lex every 5 days she's about 4 months old.... I have no intention of switching her for another month or so to every 7 days.
Please think of your animal before yourself.

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[Mike41793]

You can do it just fine, just make sure the meals every 2 weeks are big enough to leave a bulge in her tummy. Feeding schedules are for the keepers, not the snakes.

I feed mine weekly or every 5 days at that age, but they don't necessarily need that much food that often.

EDIT: you kinda have to know your snake(s). General blanket statements don't apply to all bps.

[Mephibosheth1]

I think that's why the question was asked.

Unlike most of your other animals, it can be more challenging (at least in my limited experience) to gauge the "fatness" of a snake as opposed to a rabbit, ferret, or dog. Snakes look like sausages already, so it's hard to know when they exceed the limits of normal "sausage-ness"