Ball Python Digestive and Nutritional Efficiency

As I'm currently extremely interested in making sure I have fat little snakes, what is the perceived digestive efficiency of a Ball Python? 80%? 90%? How much mass of a given food item get directly converted to weight or size gains vs how much is left in the cage for me to clean up.

Does anyone have any records or experience?

Thanks!

Paul

Fat = shorter life span.
One meal every 7 to 14 days.

Not sure "fat little snakes" is the right goal...more like strong & healthy. Cannot offer a %...as it depends on many things, not the least of which is the prey size.
Snakes need to eat according to their size, not too big, & when they're young, most of their prey is also, so it's more digestible with less waste. That's why many
new owners ask why their snake hasn't defecated after eating 3 or 4 times ("what's wrong?"). It's normal, there wasn't enough waste to bother with. But as they
grow, so too does their prey size, & they digest all they can for growth & energy. "Baby" snakes tend to look slimmer than we may hope for even though it seems
they eat "all the time", because they grow a tiny bit of length that we don't notice & don't appear to add girth for quite some time. Relax, nature knows what it's
doing. Larger prey has more fur & larger bones (which are less digestible), but don't rush snakes to eat prey that is wider than their mid-body width (un-fed), nor
keep feeding prey that's too small (thinking it's more digestible & efficient) because our snakes NEED the bigger bones for minerals etc. Feed the right prey at the
right time for healthy snakes.

My daughter actually did a science project on this a few years ago for our baby ball pythons, plus two neonate boas and a neonate reticulated python we had purchased. She tracked their weights the day after they had a BM, the weight of the feeders, and a few other metrics for six months.

Overall the retic had the most efficient digestive system, with almost 40% of the feeder weight becoming snake weight during the six month period. The ball pythons and boas were around 30%.

My apologies,

The term "fat little snakes" is more talking about the ideal overall body shape of a Ball Python. One of my girls had loose skin in many places and was pencil thin when I got her, that has gone away with her first meal(s).

The information from bcr229 is the type of information I was looking for. I want to make sure that my girls are gaining appropriately and I'm seeing correct weight gain based on food offered.

Thank you all kindly.

Paul

My Olive Python was the youngest snake that I ever started with, beginning at 3 months. Up until 5 months her waste products were nil to barely noticeable, like an eve drop maybe. Then they became the size of a fingernail. As she grew the waste increased as expected.

Snakes digestive absorbtion is very efficient during the early stages.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...5af08e92fd.png

Olivia

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bcr229

My daughter actually did a science project on this a few years ago for our baby ball pythons, plus two neonate boas and a neonate reticulated python we had purchased. She tracked their weights the day after they had a BM, the weight of the feeders, and a few other metrics for six months.

Overall the retic had the most efficient digestive system, with almost 40% of the feeder weight becoming snake weight during the six month period. The ball pythons and boas were around 30%.

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does she (or you) still have any of the data? i'd absolutely love to see it!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

does she (or you) still have any of the data? i'd absolutely love to see it!!!

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Unfortunately it was a few years back and it got lost with my laptop upgrade.

IIRC as a snake moved to larger feeders a higher percentage of the feeder became snake, most likely because mouse and rat babies are mostly liquid (blood) and fat, and that changes over to higher protein/bone as they age and grow.

Some studies that don't directly talk about how much of the prey item is absorbed by the snake, but do talk about the effect of digestion on ball pythons:
"Patterns of blood flow during the postprandial response in ball pythons, Python regius" by J. Matthias Starck and Christian Wimmer
"Functional Morphology and Patterns of Blood Flow in the Heart of Python regius" by J. Matthias Starck
"Digesting pythons quickly oxidize the proteins in their meals and save the lipids for later" by Marshall D. McCue, R. Marena Guzman, Celeste A. Passement

Not really about what eating does to them, but does talk about how slow their metabolisms are:
"Resting metabolic rates in boid snakes: allometric relationships and temperature effects" by Mark A. Chappell and Tamir M. Ellis

Well, I can tell ya that most pythons are far more efficient than colubrids if waste output vrs food input is measured, my pythons are far less messy than my kings and if I had to guess my kings make poops that appear to be 1/2 to 1/4 the size of the mice they eat... the balls typically have poops more like 1/8 or less.