"Power feeding" BG's perspective.

I nominate myself to go live in the wild with ball pythons like Dian Fossey did with gorillas. Ill let you know what I turn up. Sssssss

Those breeders are only in it for the ducats, they just cram rats down their snakes' throats until they can breed and make them more money!!!!111!

:D

I figure if my snake will eat and crap every 3-4 days, then I may as well let him!

I have to believe that wild neonate Ball Pythons would power-feed themselves--especially when rodents are involved. I could be off base here, but imagining a wild neonate searching for an appropriate sized food item, I can really only think of one scenario, and that scenario involves the snake finding a litter of rat or mice, or whatever X rodent pups. Given this does happen, I can imagine it being in the snakes best interest to down as many of the young rodents as possible from that source, and can't see the snake passing up on its find to just have one and leave to never return. I imagine that a snake would take a prey item or two, leave, return to the same site, and repeat until the litter was at least well depleted, and/or until the given prey size were to become unrealistically big. In this scenario, it seems relatively likely that the X rodents would have their next litter in the same or a nearby location, and the process could repeat itself. Once the snake outgrows the rodent young, and moves up to adult rodents, the scenario changes, as once you eliminate the adults, more effort and activity would have to be put into locating and catching more adult prey; this could account for slower growth and more infrequent meals in adult Ball Pythons. It's much easier to rely on the highly fecund nature of rodents than it is to rely on finding individual adult animals. Anywho, just a thought, but it seems pretty likely in my eyes. On the other hand, I have absolutely no in-field experience with wild Ball Pythons, so this is completely theoretical and speculative on my part, haha, so take it with a grain of salt.

**Edit**
P.S. BG, the third person approach to your posts almost forces me to read everything you type, as I'm constantly looking for you to slip up, haha. Maybe this is intentional, or maybe it's not, but either way it is a good strategy for getting people to read the entirety of your posts. Just thought I'd add that, haha.

Cheers,
-Matt

BG,

I also subscribe to the idea that these animals as babys eat way more than we provide them. It makes scense that they would want to pack on as much size as possiable in the early month to quickly move from the prey item stage to the preditor stage of life.

Like you I think there is a fine line between feeding enough to promote proper weight and growth and over feeding. I like to stick to the 5/1000 rule I feed every 5 days till they hit 1000 grams then I cut back to 7 days. I have seen animals go from 200+ grams to 1500+ grams in a matter of under a year..

These animals are neither fat nor unhealthy and will take a meal every week come hell or high water..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Big Gunns

It's gonna be hard to "define". There's not many people qualified to "define" it, since most people have no clue how much wild animals eat.

You're loving that third person talk aren't yah?

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I agree 110% with you BG I feed the crap out of my hatchlings this year & they are super nice & plump,compared to others that keep theirs so they dont have to put out the money to feed them good .same snake every show same size no growth mine will be twice the size as they were last show & hopefully sell better than a skinny 80 grammer. BP's are evolved to eat & fast thats because some years it was feast or famine for them thats why I believe they go off feed sometimes during their lives.Also there are alot of so called experts on her that have a one or two BP's that give advice when you cant really begin to understand them unless you keep many of them Im no expert at all & learn everyday & have been only keeping for 3 years & have 27 BPs as of now.

Well, I'll explain my opinion on this, though my definition of "power-feeding" is clearly different from everyone else who has posted so far.

To me, power-feeding is letting the snake grab one prey item and then continuing to feed by inserting the head of the next prey item into the snake's mouth while he's finishing the first one. This triggers the automatic feeding response, and the snake continues chowing down.

The only time I do this is when I feel the snake is too thin and needs to gain weight. This is especially true when I have a problem feeder. For example, right now, my two breeder males have been refusing food for the past couple months. One won't eat anything; the other will sometimes eat a live mouse if I give him enough time. If he does eat a mouse, I'll usually follow that one with another one or two f/t mice. He's not dangerously thin, by any means, but he's thinner than I'd like him to be. Could he continue to go without eating until he feels like he's done with breeding? Sure. However, I'd rather he stay as well-fed as possible, even if he's only breeding with one female every two weeks! ;)

As for the frequent-feeding definition of power-feeding, I will feed young snakes twice a week if they're that hungry. They won't eat when they're not hungry, from what I've seen, especially if they're warm and comfy. (At least, that's the way my snakes behave.) Otherwise, I just feed them once a week, as much or little as they want to eat. I do have some chubby juveniles, but my adults are good-sized without being obese.

So...yeah...that's my take. Stuffing a snake just to get it up to breeding weight as fast as possible, however, I don't like. Doing so is putting one's own wants and priorities ahead of the snake's...and that is dangerous territory. With a few exceptions, the snakes know what they're doing and will act accordingly.

I agree. Right now my female isn't even eating but my male hardly ever refuses. He eats around every seven days. My female just got over 600 grams and completely stopped eating. They both just turned 1 year. And no I'm not breeding female. Mother nature has to know what's going on. They'll eat when they are ready and eat as many they want

I agree, power-feeding is giving the animal more food than it's willing to take on its own.
If the snake just eats frequently, and it's not showing any developmental abnormalities (pinhead syndrome), then it's not being power fed.

I consider "power-feeding" to be along the lines of manipulating a snake to eat more than it would/could on its own so I agree with BG and many other posters above.

I think that because scheduled/rationed feeding is so commonplace with snakes, it's easy (especially for relatively new keepers) to jump to the assumption that altering this prescribed amount of prey items or the set amount of days between feeds is along the lines of "power feeding". That really isn't the case, though, not by a long shot.

I dont know,I dont have much experience, but I think if an animal is hungry it will eat. With a steady feeding schedule it would be abnormal for an animal to gorge itself underatanding that it will be fed again at a normal interval.... My understanding of power feeding is tricking an animal into eating extra by feeding regular size meal and putting another regular size meal in behind it while the first is being swallowed so the snake just keeps swallowing it down... may be wrong and i am willing to admit that i dont have much experience, but this seems to make sense to me.