11 Months of Progression with my Albino Dwarf Retic named Lucy!

[cchardwick]

Here's a photo progression of my Albino (white phase) Dwarf (50% Jampea / 50% Mainland) Reticulated python female named Lucy. So far I've had her for almost exactly 11 months. When I got her she was six months old, so now she is about 18 months old.

Here's a few photos of when I first got her. I weighed her and she was about 2.25 pounds:









Here she is at about five pounds:



And this is her at 10 pounds!







So I was cleaning up my snakes yesterday and changing out the substrate and my neighbor came over with his kids to see the snakes. So of course Lucy is the star and I took her out first to impress everyone. I hadn't handled her in a couple months so I didn't know exactly how big she was. It turns out she is getting to be a monster LOL! We put her on the scale and she came in at 26.3 pounds!!!













And of course no photo shoot is complete without sharing some pie with the girls LOLOLOL!

[rock]

Wow! Great pictures. That is quite a progression!! Beautiful snake.

[EL-Ziggy]

Awesome pictures and gorgeous critters! Thanks for sharing.

[Reinz]

Wow, I knew they grew fast, but that Really puts it in perspective. Looks like a very special snake. Absolutely stunning.

[cchardwick]

I'm actually planning on breeding her once she gets to be three years old, just another 18 months to go! I have a male super dwarf purple albino retic that I'll cross with her.

I'll have to admit that I probably feed her more than anyone else on this forum. I give her 2-4 large rats every week! I was over run with rats in my rat breeding setup and tried to feed them off as fast as possible but I ended up putting about 100 rats on ice this week. I still have about 100 rats in my rack! I have tons of mice too, my ball pythons are getting beefed up on rats and mice. I'm going through about 8 rats per week just feeding my two retics. That's why they are growing like rockets!

This girl is big enough to eat the largest rats that I have, over a pound per rat! She only refused a meal once and that was just before she shed. There's been a few times where she jumped out and almost bit me when I opened the tub from a feeding response. Now I just slightly crack open the tub and slip the rat in so she doesn't jump out LOL.

[Mr.Snake]

That's a dwarf??

[AbsoluteApril]

Awesome shots! Looks great! I love the white phases.
I did a one year growth comp on my dwarf as well (thread title Chickenfoot!). It's amazing how fast they grow!

[cchardwick]

That's a dwarf??

Well she is 50% Jampea dwarf, those pure Jampeas still can get up to 14 feet long. Also, keep in mind that I'm feeding heavily too, the growth rate depends on how much you feed them more than anything else, plus the percentage of Mainland blood (50% in this case). Most people feed one large rat every 10 days or so, and I'm feeding four rats every seven days! So I've pretty much gave her four years worth of food in just one year LOL. I'm trying to get her as big as I can for maximum egg production. Most people keep them under fed and very skinny to keep them on the small size, I've even seen breeders that keep them really thin compared to Lucy.

For comparison, check out this 50% Jampea Tiger retic, this boy is about the same age, maybe a month or two older and look how small he is compared to Lucy. He is feeding one rat per week.



Also for comparison, here is an adult pure dwarf Jampea female, this is how big they can get without adding Mainland influence.

[EL-Ziggy]

@ CCH- Do you consider 4 large rats every 7 days power feeding and do you think that's healthy for your snake? I understand feeding them a little bit heavier to get them up to size but that seems a bit extreme to me. Couldn't that shorten the animal's life span by overfeeding it so much?

[cchardwick]

Well I can tell you that she seems very happy and very content, she basically eats whenever she is hungry. She lets me know by coming up to the window on the tub and giving me the eye, usually when I'm cleaning the rodents, or she paces the tub. She doesn't look fat to me, just very healthy. Personally I think the skinny snake above looks a bit sickly compared to Lucy. I have read that any animal that is under fed to the point of being starved can live a lot longer than something that eats a lot. They say that if you want to live to 100 years you can starve yourself LOL.

To me that photo of the pure Jampea looks way overweight. I basically go by the body shape, when snakes are young they can process the extra food and put it into healthy growth. Once they reach that sweet spot where their metabolism slows down I'll reduce the food or stop all together. I have a King snake that got really fat and I didn't feed her for months until she was back down to a healthy weight. I also like to keep my snakes on the heavy side (not too fat though) for when they go on an extended fast, especially during breeding where they can fast for up to 6 months at a time. If they start that fast on the skinny side they end up so skinny that I fear for their health. I've also found that especially with retics that if you under feed them they can get super aggressive, especially during feeding time. The feeding response is crazy and can be very dangerous for the keeper. The more you feed them the more it mellows out the feeding response.