Re: WIll my BPs be ready for the next Breeding Season?
I'd really like to discourage feeding multiple food items in one session without stepping on anybodies toes. I'm sure people do it with success, but there can be problems.
I've personally had it happen twice. I asked around, and somebody told me I should feed multiple food items in one feeding to speed up growth. So I tried it with 8 of my 150 gram to 225 gram bp morphs. Anyway 6 of them did awesome on this program. They seemed happy, and healthy all the time. Once they pooped we'd feed them again with 2 to 3 small fuzzies. but 2 of these ball pythons didn't poop for 2 weeks. They became skinny, and limp. The other bp's pooped on a schedule of 3 to 5 days. Anyway I asked around, and the same person that told me I should try this told me it could kill the snakes if their digestive tract didn't process the food right. Well I spoke to a friend online who is a vet, and she told me there are two ways to go about saving them. #1 raise their temps about 5 to 8 degrees, and keep them moist until they pass the food, and shed, then regulate their temps to normal and hope for the best. Or #2 if it gets any worse surgery would be needed to remove the obstruction before the food literally rotted inside them, and killed them.
Well, luckily option #1 helped. They're alive, and starting to eat on a regular basis. I don't know if I'm going over board, but until their weights are a little above normal I'm only feeding them small-ish food items for another month or two.
Now for the others, I decided to switch them over to asf rats every 4 to 6 days. The prey item is the size of the largest girth of the snake or slightly larger.
Now to stay on topic: The point is that all the males that are 09's have grown rapidly on the asf proper feeding regimen. They're all between 400, and 600 grams. Now get this! I have a female het caramel that has jumped to almost 800 grams, and a spider male who is almost 800 grams.
So basically I'm just saying if you're gonna rush the snakes into breeding early in my opinion ( it's only that ) the best way is to give them their natural food ( african soft furs ) at a safe but accelerated rate. Just be careful to slow them down as they mature or you'll end up with obese males that wont breed.
Hope this is helpful.