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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ginevive
The digestive tract of pythons has developed to digest one big meal at a time, not several smaller ones in a week.
Are you stating fact or opinion here? If this is a fact, please cite the source of this information as it would be useful to everyone on this site.
Thank you in advance for your response.
-adam
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Schlyne
Personally, I think you can powerfeed a bp, and it's not healthy.
Personally, I think that with a little more experience with these animals you will realize that ball pythons really are impossible to power feed.
I'm not sure where this misconception comes from, but there is no evidence anywhere to support that ball pythons can be power fed to the point of it damaging their health.
-adam
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schlyne
Personally, I think you can powerfeed a bp, and it's not healthy.
Personally, I think that with a little more experience with these animals you will realize that ball pythons really are impossible to power feed.
I'm not sure where this misconception comes from, but there is no evidence anywhere to support that ball pythons can be power fed to the point of it damaging their health.
-adam
I bet you my left shoe, I can show you an obese bp.
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There is no proof that powerfeeding juveniles shortens the lives of ball pythons. All evidence of detrimental effects on developing young have been on rodents, not ball pythons or any other reptiles. It would take a 30 year project with several ball pythons to prove it, and to date nobody has even officially begun such an experiment let alone completed it.
A BP should be on the fat side entering the breeding season. They gorge themselves in the wild that time of year, eating entire gerbil colonies in a single sitting, so there isn't any harm when they are offered food generously at the equivalent time in their seasonal cycle done in captivity. As long as you're not feeding an adult ball python like that all year round, there's no reason for there to be negative effects on health.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Blink
I bet you my left shoe, I can show you an obese bp.
Diagnosed by a DVM or VMD as obese or obese in your opinion?
I would love to see a written diagnoses of obesity in p. reqius by a qualified veterinarian.
I'm not really sure that I want your left shoe though. Is it a NIKE?
-adam
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I am not saying this is a BP, but this is the resuts of obese/powerfeeding snakes. This is not my snake, I foudn the picture.
http://www.petsnakes.co.uk/Under_The...nake_Thumb.jpg
Click that.
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Kinda cool
DANG !! that is Crazy.
It also looks like it could be really really constipated too.Either that or pregant.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BallPythonBabe448
Ball pythons are very different from corn snakes in their eating habits. You can't look at one type of snake and directly or indirectly relate it's behavior or eating habits to another.
-adam
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Most pythons you can feed pretty aggressively when they're young & they'll just translate all that food into growth. I once had someone accuse me of powerfeeding a retic - it's just about impossible to overfeed the giants.
When it comes to ball pythons - you can get them up to size in a fairly short amount of time through increased feeding, but some will mature faster than others. We've made male ball pythons "breeding size" in a relatively short time frame - some of them will go ahead to breed, and others may make you wait another season until they mature. The snakes still go at their own rate, regardless of size. Same goes for females - you can get a female up to 1500 grams in 18 months and some will breed, some won't. The ones that won't aren't ready - or as Ralph Davis puts it "they're still just fat girls in the 3rd grade." (I LOVE that quote - awesome analogy).
Adam's not talking out his bum here, folks...it's hard to make a young python obese. It can even be difficult to make an adult ball obese due to their habits of going off-feed during the breeding season. What's important is for a keeper to know that particular snake's "best" condition, and understand when to feed & when to back the animal off. Obese snakes don't reproduce well - I don't care what species they are.
Just my $.02
K
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Adam, it's a statement that, while not gathered from a specific text, was something I inferred. I just do not think there's a huge, plentiful food supply for wild BPs; they are the type of animal which eats one big meal and then goes off to digest it slowly. This is how their digestive system has evolved; much different than, say, a ranid frog, which feeds daily in the wild. I do not think a BP who's busy digesting a rare food item in the wild, would be eager to go out in the wild and look for another one until that's absolutely necessary.
However, I should not have even mentioned this at all, since the habits of wild BPs are so far removed from the ones of our captives. Wild BPs are highly, highly skittish and shy animals of course (I have seen a recently imported adult male who actually flailed around trying to get away, and musked me when I picked him up, and I have never seen that in a captive born or bred BP.) So I do not imagine they'd venture out of their burrows much in the wild, unless they were feeling hungry. And I doubt they'd feel hungry if they were in the midst of digesting a big prey item.
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