Let's Discuss Dietary Requirements for Ball Pythons

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

Ever thought that since temps and digestion go hand in hand that we are stimulating them to consume more by providing them 92 degree hot spots to lay on?

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Sure I have - every time I look at an annual climate map of their home area. You mostly see average highs in the low-upper 80s and average lows in the mid-upper 70s depending on the time of year.

In a perfect world, would it be cool to have a thermostat and heat source that could replicate these daily temperature fluctuations? Of course. Would that be better for their long-term health than providing them with a consistent temperature gradient that captured this range on a daily basis? I'm not sure.

In recent time, I've become quite a bit less concerned with skipped meals from the standpoint of "because they ate, I am doing things right". These days a skipped meal upsets me more from the standpoint of "I should have known better" because I'm trying to become more observant of individual snake's feeding habits. Also, because I feed mostly frozen/thawed rats, a missed meal = money wasted. I've actually changed my feeding schedule (split into two days vs one), and in-tune feeding amount (there are no longer "leftovers" to feed to snakes who already ate on that day), to reflect this mindset.

So, my set up is unique in that I have a separate building for my reptiles. I also do not keep anything but varanids, heloderms, and colubrids these days. I sold off my boids years ago. Our tortoises are kept outside in pens.

The building is kept at roughly 73 to 75 degrees during the day. Everything I have basks, so they are given basking sites of some sort. The front of the building is about 35% window, so temps increase slightly during the day. During the summer I let temps drop uncontrolled at night and during the winter I control the drop.

Now, if I were to use the same building for ball pythons, I would experiment around to find an ambient temperature in the building that lowers to about 77 degrees at night and allows for a range of about 82 to 88 in the enclosures depending on the time of the day.

I would also not provide a hot spot, but a slightly - very slightly - warmer basking spot during the first few hours of the night to stimulate the elective behavior of finding some residual heat after the sun goes down.

I think that once dialed in, I could provide a natural cycle.

Anyway, enough of the circular talk. Bottom line is I think as a group, captive snakes are overfed because people don't bother to take the time to do any research on them. We take someone's word instead of perusing studies and literature on the subject. Eric, some of these studies are almost 40 years old...the information is out there, we just choose to ignore it.

The problem with that if you make a list of everyone on this forum today...you will find that in 4 years many of them are gone. Some go away because they don't enjoy the interaction, some because they eventually see no point in it, but a lot go away simply because people do not tend to stay with this hobby that long.

One of the reasons I stopped breeding reptiles is because I always included a right of first refusal agreement with my sales. I haven't gone back to crunch the numbers but I would guess that more than half of the animals were returned to me. The number one reason? Eventual disinterest.

In other words, a lot of the advice that is given out is by people who don't spend a lot of time in the hobby and who are just repeating what someone else who hasn't spent a lot of time in the hobby told them.

On another thread, a member talked about how her ball python died of fatty liver disease and how the vet observed how overfed these animals are. There's a good reason for this...it's a lifestyle disease that we force on these animals.

I would argue there is no one "right way" to feed your ball python. Ball pythons themselves in the wild follow their own caloric fulfillment habits based on their individual activities. I do feel that there is a "wrong way" and that is following a blanket pattern without questioning it.

I agree that many people advise feeding their snakes way more than what they actually need. I also agree that the strictness of the basking temps are not really as necessary as people make them seem. It is not as if your snake is going to die if its left at room temp for a few hours, or the hot spot isn't precisely 92.1459 or whatever people are getting told these days.

So what simple advice can we give new comers so they don't fall into the same habits? I usually recommend feeding hatchlings weekly until they get some size on them. Once they are nice and plump I don't think they need to continue eating on a 7 day schedule.

I think we still need to have some consistent recommendations for people new to the hobby so its easy for them to understand. A newbie isn't going to come to this thread and have any idea what to feed their snake from then on out. Heck even I don't know! lol

I kept my balls in glass tanks for years in my room without any issues. My room temps averaged mid to upper 70s year round, definitely a bit warmer in the summer. I fed my snakes once a month or every other month even sometimes. I never had a single issue. I had heat lamps. For the week after I fed them, I would run that for them for a few hours every nite after dinner. That's all they got and I had three of them. They didn't die. They were as healthy as all of mine now that I keep in a rack. Lol

Temp drops don't kill them either. I've had balls get into the upper 60s at nite for years and they never had any health issues either. They still had their hotspots at 86/87.

They're different than balls, totally different continent, but I read in a Carpet Python book that there's a population of carpets at an upper elevation somewhere in Australia where nite temps can drop as low as 36°F and the snakes do just fine.

If people are brainwashed to think that their snake needs to eat every week then when it doesn't, they get all worried. If the standards were updated to be more accurate, and balls only needed to be fed every 4-6 weeks, then people wouldn't be losing their minds when the snake doesn't eat. Lol

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Temp drops don't kill them either. I've had balls get into the upper 60s at nite for years and they never had any health issues either. They still had their hotspots at 86/87.

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Same. My hotspots are 87 or 88. I've had night temperature drops into the low 70s frequently, and a occasionally into the 60's. My average ambient temperature is only around 75 in the house, including the room the snakes are in.

They all keep going with no issues.

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Originally Posted by Eric Alan

In recent time, I've become quite a bit less concerned with skipped meals from the standpoint of "because they ate, I am doing things right".

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It used to annoy me when mine wouldn't eat. Some of them ate every single week, but some would eat 3 weeks in a row, take 2 weeks off, eat once, then two more weeks off, etc. It was frustrating me a bit.

Then I realized I was trying to force some of them to do something I wanted them to do, not something they needed or wanted.

So the ones who ate less consistently started getting fed less regularly. Once every two weeks. It took up to a month for them to get with the program, but once they got on track they started eating more consistently, just less often. Their health is fine, their growth is fine, and we're all happier.

I also feed smaller. Nothing gets larger than a 60g rat, most of the time they are in the 40g to 50g range. Once in a while if someone doesn't eat, one of the hungrier girls will pick up a second meal, but even then the total food for a meal never surpasses 100g (and that is only a couple of times a year).

I even started feeding multiple types of prey. Rats, mice, and chicks. Only a few of mine will eat all three so they get the most variety, but all of the others (except 1) will eat at least two types of food (rats & mice, rats & chicks, or chicks & mice), so they all get some variety. No idea if it actually improved anything for them, but they eat a varied diet in the wild, so they'll get it here while they're with me.

I never worry about skipped meals anymore. If they skip a few times, I start looking at changing their schedule, but otherwise the meal goes to a garbage collector, and the snake stays on it's schedule next time around.

I would also like to know where this idea of "fattening up" a female for breeding season comes from; I would think the key goal would just be good body condition and not breeding too often. I'd like to see how much fat a breeding wild female has vs domestic. This thread does make me feel better about the fact I feed my female (9 years and the only one out of growing) on a 3 to 5 week schedule, with a break from food for 2-3 months each winter. And she's gained weight over the years even though I'm not breeding her or feeding her to breed her.

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Originally Posted by Samong

I would also like to know where this idea of "fattening up" a female for breeding season comes from; I would think the key goal would just be good body condition and not breeding too often. I'd like to see how much fat a breeding wild female has vs domestic. This thread does make me feel better about the fact I feed my female (9 years and the only one out of growing) on a 3 to 5 week schedule, with a break from food for 2-3 months each winter. And she's gained weight over the years even though I'm not breeding her or feeding her to breed her.

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I think the origin on this comes from a psychological stand point rather than an actual physical need, but the reason why big breeders do it gets left out or abridged, so small time breeders only get passed on "you need to fatten that female up!" as advice. Watched Brian Barczyk's recent youtube vid on breeding advice, and it would seem the reasoning is less "fatten them up" and more "make a readily available food supply to stimulate follicle growth and breeding desire." The logic here being that females, either by instinct, some bodily reaction, or other unknown factor will translate "good food supply" into "lots of resources available for my offspring, making this a good time to reproduce."

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

So, my set up is unique in that I have a separate building for my reptiles. I also do not keep anything but varanids, heloderms, and colubrids these days. I sold off my boids years ago. Our tortoises are kept outside in pens.

The building is kept at roughly 73 to 75 degrees during the day. Everything I have basks, so they are given basking sites of some sort. The front of the building is about 35% window, so temps increase slightly during the day. During the summer I let temps drop uncontrolled at night and during the winter I control the drop.

Now, if I were to use the same building for ball pythons, I would experiment around to find an ambient temperature in the building that lowers to about 77 degrees at night and allows for a range of about 82 to 88 in the enclosures depending on the time of the day.

I would also not provide a hot spot, but a slightly - very slightly - warmer basking spot during the first few hours of the night to stimulate the elective behavior of finding some residual heat after the sun goes down.

I think that once dialed in, I could provide a natural cycle.

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The inner perfectionist in me just found a proportional thermostat available that can make daily/monthly adjustments to lighting/humidity/temperature based upon preset climate zones (that are fully customizable). In my own perfect little world, I would love to have that kind of flexibility. Perhaps some day...

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

Some food for thought - especially with regards to differing diets of male and female balls pythons:

Concerning the python diet, Luiselli and Angelci (1998) demonstrated that, although rodents were the main prey type for both sexes, the males differed from the females because they fed significantly more often on arboreal prey (birds), whereas the female diet was based nearly exclusively on terrestrial rodents. The authors hypothesized that these differences were attributable to a higher use of the arboreal niche by males, as also suggested by some incidental observations of males climbed on low tree branches.


So males are more apt to climb and also have adapted to actively hunt and make use of less calorically dense prey types.

There are further studies that confirm this fact (increase arboreality of males vs. females/more varied diet) that were incidental to studies on why female and male ball pythons carry differing external parasite loads.

I would therefore argue that even if 10% were adequate for a female, male ball pythons have been studies as more active hunters that could potentially expend more calories hunting down avian prey that have less calories than mammalian prey.

A large rat is roughly 62% protein, 33% fat and has an energy rating of 6.40 kcal/gram of rat.

A chick has a similar protein profile, but 11% less fat and an energy rating of 5.80 kcal/gram.

However we can probably safely say that wild african songbirds and other ball python target prey items are more active and less fatty than a domestic chick or quail.

Bottom line - even if 10% was a safe prey mass ratio for female ball pythons, it could easily be argued that if may be too much for males.

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Skiploder,
You have offered up some great information and some thought provoking questions. I'd like to make a few comments starting with the information above. While this shows that some males will seek arboreal food more often then females, it doesn't offer a reason as to why. Could it be the larger body size of the female makes it less suitable to climbing? Could it be that the male choosing to feed on higher elevated prey leaves more food readily available to the ground constrained females, and much like warblers stratifying in the jack pines, it doesn't depleat the source? It wouldn't seem that the different genders would have different dietary requirements as far as the chemical composition of the food item, so there must be another reason. What ever the reason, it is interesting.

With regard to the 10% to 15% feeder amount, I have always looked at that as a not to exceed number with hatchlings, and have pretty much ignored it all together with regard to larger snakes. On the larger snakes I have just used the snake body diameter > or = prey diameter formula. Regarding frequency I have fed my hatchlings for sale just once a week and have only used the shortened 5 day schedule on those subjects that I was trying to move along a little quicker for my own breeding plans. None of the adults are fed more than once a week unless I have a refusal and it's a matter of either pitching the food item or offering a second to one of the others. But in those rare instances I tend to skip the following week for those animals that take the second item. I only use smalls or mediums for adult snakes. Neither smalls for the males or mediums for the females ever come close to the 15% mark once the animal is about 2 years old. Besides, a 2000 gram female would have a lot of trouble taking down a 300 gram rat, not to mention a 3500 or 4000 gram female.

As far as basking temps and such, I think that you are correct in that a lot of information gets passed along as fact but mainly because it has been reurgitated so often it is believed to be true, like an urban legend. However, I think we all can agree that we should at least try to create an environement that would provide some of the same consistancy of temperature as they would encounter in the wild. Anyone living north of the Mason dixon Line would certainly have trouble with that just using the ambients of their house since most of us like it around 70 or lower depending on your age, gender, or economic situation. So we provide a heat source whether UTH or Basking. And with the heat source is the necessity for regulation since most sources left uncontrolled can injure or worse. I agree that the actual range needed is probably far more wide ranging and forgiving then what gets stressed around here, but again it's easier to say a number than a range when someone is asking what to set the thermostat to. Also, if you tell people there is a wide range they may just think that regulating it is unnecessary which could have dire consequences. So we err on the side of caution. Regarding the natural temps, is there good data regarding the internal temps of the burrows during the daytime hours and the ground temperatures during the night? We can't just go by the average air temps since neither the day or night temps are what the animal is actually in contact with. When they are in the burrow during the day, it is precisely to avoid the daytime air temperatures. Also, if they are wholed up in a termite mound and not too deep in, they could be experiencing a drastically different temp then a snake in a burrow three feet below the ground surface. Same thing at night, since the entire bottom surface of the snake is often in contact with the ground, if the sun has heated that surface up drastically during the day and the evening hasn't allowed for too much radiant loss, the snake may be warmer than the air temp. How many snakes die on the road at night utilizing the surface temps of the asphalt?

All in all I believe your arguments valid, but if we are to change things then we need some good solid data. Also, it should be presented in a way that easily digestible to the layperson since they are going to most commonly be the ones asking. How do you suggest we proceed?

Love it. You da man, Skip.

I have a lot I could say on this but it could be summarized to 2 key points:
1) Learn the needs and behaviors of your animals and you'll never need to read a care sheet again
2) http://24.media.tumblr.com/80a74c3a5...58k3o1_500.png

This is the most fascinating thread I have read since discovering this forum. I have returned to BP keeping following a lengthy absence and my circumstances are much different.

Previously I had many dozens of BPs plus other snakes and lizards. I bred my own feed animals and fed on schedule with whatever I had that was, from observation, the 'correct' girth. As we were breeding we always had every size available.

Now that I have a much smaller collection and no personally bred feed animals it takes more planning about what to purchase and store..but.. the smaller number of animals has made feeding more tailored to animal need. I no longer have a feeding day. In the evening if the snake is active I make a point of watching it the next evening also. Any snake that appears to be hunting 2 nights in a row is offered a meal. Snakes that do not 'hunt' do not get offered but they do get checked and weighed just in case something is wrong (which it never has been)

My one exception to this has been small snakes which I worried about more since I feel the need to ensure they are getting a good start in life. They get offered regardless but now I have to rethink that also. I purchased a small BP on 12/12/14 and he took 2 rat pinkies the first week and another 2 the second, matching the every 3-5 days schedule. The last 2 weeks he hasn't eaten. On my last offering he struck the offered item hard enough to knock it out of the tub without any attempt to wrap it. I wouldn't worry about an adult not eating for 2 weeks but as he is a baby i checked on him. Well guess what? he knows what he is doing. I weighed him and in the month i had him he has gone from 110 grams to 160 grams, so I am sure he isn't hungry and would prefer not to be bothered.

I think skip has raised some interesting points and i think this has been a good exercise in examining our own behaviour rather than the snakes.

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

Skiploder,
You have offered up some great information and some thought provoking questions. I'd like to make a few comments starting with the information above. While this shows that some males will seek arboreal food more often then females, it doesn't offer a reason as to why. Could it be the larger body size of the female makes it less suitable to climbing? Could it be that the male choosing to feed on higher elevated prey leaves more food readily available to the ground constrained females, and much like warblers stratifying in the jack pines, it doesn't depleat the source? It wouldn't seem that the different genders would have different dietary requirements as far as the chemical composition of the food item, so there must be another reason. What ever the reason, it is interesting.

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Don't know. I've thought about body size playing a role...the possibility that they roam more than females in general and ambush less has predisposed them to be more active hunters...

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

As far as basking temps and such, I think that you are correct in that a lot of information gets passed along as fact but mainly because it has been reurgitated so often it is believed to be true, like an urban legend. However, I think we all can agree that we should at least try to create an environement that would provide some of the same consistancy of temperature as they would encounter in the wild. Anyone living north of the Mason dixon Line would certainly have trouble with that just using the ambients of their house since most of us like it around 70 or lower depending on your age, gender, or economic situation. So we provide a heat source whether UTH or Basking. And with the heat source is the necessity for regulation since most sources left uncontrolled can injure or worse. I agree that the actual range needed is probably far more wide ranging and forgiving then what gets stressed around here, but again it's easier to say a number than a range when someone is asking what to set the thermostat to. Also, if you tell people there is a wide range they may just think that regulating it is unnecessary which could have dire consequences. So we err on the side of caution. Regarding the natural temps, is there good data regarding the internal temps of the burrows during the daytime hours and the ground temperatures during the night? We can't just go by the average air temps since neither the day or night temps are what the animal is actually in contact with. When they are in the burrow during the day, it is precisely to avoid the daytime air temperatures. Also, if they are wholed up in a termite mound and not too deep in, they could be experiencing a drastically different temp then a snake in a burrow three feet below the ground surface. Same thing at night, since the entire bottom surface of the snake is often in contact with the ground, if the sun has heated that surface up drastically during the day and the evening hasn't allowed for too much radiant loss, the snake may be warmer than the air temp. How many snakes die on the road at night utilizing the surface temps of the asphalt?

All in all I believe your arguments valid, but if we are to change things then we need some good solid data. Also, it should be presented in a way that easily digestible to the layperson since they are going to most commonly be the ones asking. How do you suggest we proceed?

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I don't know. I really don't. I think we confuse people new to the hobby with all this talk about thermoregulation zones - hot, cold, ambient. Maybe it's easier to provide a gently varying ambient during the day, with a residual hot spot situated at the mouth of the hide with a night drop. the idea is that these animals tend to spend their days in humid microclimates. If we focus on that one simple trait, instead of three distinct zones ALL the time with a constant humidity of X%, we can simplify things.

Heat your room to 83 or 84 degrees, let it vary slightly with the rise and fall of the day and then let it drop to X at night. Utilize a UTH as soon as the cooling process begins for two or three hours and that's it. The microclimate of the den should be humid but not necessarily the whole enclosure.

Maybe it would be worth our time to design the perfect ball python micro climate hide....? Soak the hide and it gently releases humidity for an extended period of time, something along those lines.

In the USU Study on Ball Python behavior, the first person to breed these snakes in captivity at the Houston Zoo noted:

Logan noted that their ball pythons tended to spend more of their time in the
cooler areas of their cage as compared to other pythons and boas at the zoo. Specifically,
Logan states, “I’ve never seen our regius ‘bask’ under the warm spot…as do other
Boids.”

I haven't looked at exact denning temperatures, but I would think that they would be close to the incubation temperatures we advise. The idea is that - with the exception of night drops - the den IS the incubator. Ball pythons are maternal brooders and the tightly coiled ministrations of the female keep the temp as constant as possible when the sun goes down.

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

I haven't looked at exact denning temperatures, but I would think that they would be close to the incubation temperatures we advise. The idea is that - with the exception of night drops - the den IS the incubator. Ball pythons are maternal brooders and the tightly coiled ministrations of the female keep the temp as constant as possible when the sun goes down.

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I found the following piece of information regarding den temperatures. Per Ball Pythons by the Barkers (p 8):

• Greer (1994) measured temperature and humidity in three nest sites that were excavated in his presence. The burrows were in unshaded open ground, and the temperature of the ground surface over the burrows varied from 107 degrees to 111 degrees F (42 degrees to 44 degrees C); ambient relative humidity was 66 percent to 68 percent. The measured air temperatures inside the nesting chambers where females were brooding clutches of eggs varied from 92 degrees to 96 degrees F (33 degrees to 35.5 degrees C), and the ambient relative humidity of the air in the dry earthen chambers ranged from 83 percent to 88 percent.

On the surface, this seems to be contrary to their recommendation that "our snakes want to be cool, but they occasionally they warm up" (p 173). It's likely, IMO, that these elevated den temperatures were found because the search groups were specifically seeking nesting sites, in which they'd expect to find gravid females and/or clutches of eggs, and not necessarily regular use burrows. The Barker's do note later on that "gravid ball pythons will usually pick the warmer as the place to lay their eggs" (p 223) when offering gravid females a choice of a warmer vs a cooler part of the cage.

Their temperature recommendations are "ambient temperatures of 78 to 80 degrees F (26 to 27 degrees C) with a basking spot of 86 degrees F (30 degrees C)" (p 170-171). They then clarify this in regards to providing temperature gradients: "Even though the warm area of the cage may be 88 degrees F (31 degrees C) and the cool area 78 degrees F (26 degrees C), the ball python living in the cage can easily and purposely achieve a core body temperature of, say, 84 degrees F (29 degrees C). This the snake accomplishes behaviorally by selectively placing only part of its body in the warm area, and physiologically by deferentially shunting blood flow through the capillary beds in its skin," (p 171).

This follows my earlier thought process that the snakes knows better than I do its needs at any given time, which is why I provide a warm spot in addition to a consistent ambient temperature.

Pretty much everything is going to affect how much of a prey item is utilized making it nearly impossible to come up with a solid, long term guideline based on weight % alone. You've got stress levels, parasite loads, temperature ranges, prey type, prey age(fat content), activity level, etc. In conjunction with whatever numbers we come up with a picture guide showing the range of body types and prey options modeled after their wild diet would be most useful to new keepers. Maybe throw in some pictures under different circumstances covering a yearly cycle.

Example:
These snakes feed primarily on small rodents in the wild with males showing at least a seasonal tendency towards birds.
Followed by pictures or groups of pictures within each category:
1) snake is underweight
2) snake is overweight
3) snake is of average build
4) fasting male
5) building female
6) pre laying
7) post laying
8) neonate
9) yearling

Then folks who aren't sure can occasionally check the picture guide to see where their snake lies on the spectrum and adjust food intake accordingly. With so many keepers and pictures flooding the net, it's not always easy finding examples of these animals in the wild, let alone enough to get a decent idea of what their average body build should look like, but that's what I always strive for - a healthy, natural median. I'm not modeling my animals after the starving snake on death's door or the animal that just cleaned out a whole colony of rodents.

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Originally Posted by John1982

Pretty much everything is going to affect how much of a prey item is utilized making it nearly impossible to come up with a solid, long term guideline based on weight % alone.

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I did have the chance to read an article earlier today about almost this exact topic. I don't recall the specifics off the top of my head, but it was regarding digestion rate of various Python species (5 total), and balls were one of them. All 5 species were fed meals equivalent to 25% of their mass and monitored for a period of time. Of the 5 species, the balls were 2nd to last or last in terms of speed of digestion. This likely indicates that they are naturally able to "stretch" meals out for longer periods of time than the other species (or, that they don't require as fast of a metabolism as the other species for one reason or another).

Now, what this means in terms of coming up with some kind of generic feeding recommemdation, I don't know for sure. It's just more evidence that they don't need as much food as some may think. Personally, I took it as another tool in my toolbox to think about during periods of fasting.

I do like the idea of some sort of pictorial showing healthy ball pythons at various stages of their lives. I mean, really, who's going to say no to more pictures of snakes! :)

I have been thinking about this all day whilst working. I have come to a conclusion that i am sure that some others have reached before me but not said

i think the 10-15% every week myth is the work of those providing animal food items, in order to sell more

and readily believed by those wanting to see rapid progress

we all know the price of animals falls - i once paid £4250 (about $6500) for a lesser pastel - and the sales pitch is that you can be producing whatever you have bought in 2 years if you feed them up enough. So the temptation is to try and breed in 2 years instead of 3 before the price has dropped further. So the seller wins twice, he sells you an animal on the hope you can produce your own quickly and you buy the food items to try and make that happen

have i gone cynical or does anyone else think this may be the source of the feeding every week myth ?

I'm not so certain it was purposefully perpetuated... but yeah, I'm starting to see a correlation between people trying to beat the market and the aggressive feeding practices that have become standard in the hobby. With breeding BPs becoming more an more popular, it might be useful to set out to produce separate feeding guidelines between pet keepers, hobby breeders, and full time businesses, as well as enforce the idea that guidelines and generalizations are just that, and that the needs of individual snakes and their health should trump them.

This is an extremely interesting thread, and something I've been giving myself some thought on since I was informed that I may have been overfeeding my boa constrictor a bit. Since then, I've been advocating feeding smaller prey items less often, and my boa constrictor has been on a diet of rabbits that leave no bulge every 4 weeks for about a year now (they weigh roughly 3-8% of his body weight), and I've noticed body tone more similar to what he had when he was a baby and 3ft long. I have also been fasting him for the winter, withholding food for 3 months and lowering temps, and he should be ready to eat again mid- to late-February. I'll be raising temps 1-2 weeks before I feed him again to get his metabolism running again, and he'll get a rabbit. I'm also thinking about ordering some chicks to shake up his diet, feeding a mix of rabbits, chicks, and rats, and I may start him on a 5 week feeding schedule for rats and rabbits, and 3 weeks for the chicks. The success I've seen feeding my boa constrictor this way has made me think on feeding the ball python similarly, especially since he's much older and no longer growing.

I have also become less worried about if my ball python eats on time, although I still do like when he meets the schedule. lol Right now, I have him eating 1 jumbo mouse every 2 weeks, and I have noticed an extreme increase in his feeding response. The mice average 40-50 grams, 70 grams being the largest and 25 grams being the smallest. Each week I would offer two, but he would only take one, but this last feeding he had an especially strong feeding response, striking the side of his tub a couple times as I walked by. He actually took two that time, which was 17-18 days ago, and he refused to eat when I offered again, despite just coming out of a shed earlier that day and defecating. Keep in mind, when I was feeding regular-sized adult mice he had no qualms about eating 5 of them at a time, so I doubt it's a problem with taking multiple prey. He generally makes use of every inch of space I offer him, exploring and moving/flipping hides for about 1-2 hours at the beginning of the night before settling down and then hiding the rest of the day, unless he just ate or is in shed. I also noticed an increase in feeding response when I dropped down from feeding mediums weekly to feeding small rats biweekly. In my experience, his strikes seem to be based off of overfeeding and stress, as his most major strikes coincided with each time I moved residences. If it weren't for the 8 month strike he went through last year, I would have been fasting him with the boa. If he continues to eat well, and I may be extending his feeding even further to every 3 weeks, then I will also be fasting him winter of 2015. I have noticed he is a lot more muscular than most ball pythons I see online, as he regularly explores and doesn't eat every week.

Right now, due to lack of space, he's in a tub with a red light heat lamp (was considering a CHE, but decided it would take a lot more care than just hooking it up to a thermostat to make it safe and opted to stay with the bulb) set so that he has a 90F hot spot. This is because the room is cold and in order to keep the cool end above 70F he needs a good basking spot, and I don't like using just heat tape since it really only heats the bedding without heating the cold air entering the tub (if I can't get him into his custom enclosure again soon I may use my leftover heat tape and shut off his lamp at night leaving only the heat tape running during the night - I already turn off all heat and light for my garter at night). While he was in his wooden enclosure, I kept the entire enclosure at 80-85F evenly, and I have noticed no difference in defecation rates or activity levels even though his feeding rate has not changed (I do still prefer offering a gradient, but that's just my opinion). He seems to defecate every 1-2 months, and leaves urates every other week. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm not sure if this means I'm underfeeding him as 40-50 grams, and even 70 grams, is a small percentage of the ~1380 grams he weighs, yet he gained weight after he started eating and now his weight is staying pretty steady barring fluctuations from urates and as-of-yet expelled feces. He may even still be steadily gaining weight, albeit much slower than at first.

I would be interested in seeing the X-rays of ball pythons fed on these aggressive feedings schedules, and ones fed a more conservative diet, if that could show their internal fat deposits for comparison's sake. I feel seeing the fat deposits in different individuals would be an extremely useful part in seeing the impact various diets have on them, as well as data on wild individuals. Overall, this thread is very good food for thought.

Sorry, just don't want this thread to get lost. Or it's message.

Interesting topic for sure. I have an adult male approx 9 years, 2400 grams in a 3 x 2 cage who is a mouser, he gets 1-3 per week, normally two, he fasts several months per year and always been very curious on whether I am feeding the "right" amount.

This thread has to be the most fascinating of almost anything I've read on this site. Thanks again Skiploder. Looking forward to more of your observations.

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Originally Posted by Sonny1318

This thread has to be the most fascinating of almost anything I've read on this site. Thanks again Skiploder. Looking forward to more of your observations.

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Not related to ball pythons, but as clelia and boiruna become more popular, more and more pictures of obese examples of these animals are making their way onto the internet.

These are the two species that make up what is commonly and collectively known as mussurana in the hobby. These snakes eat a wide variety of prey items...the vast majority of which are other snakes. They are only nominally opportunistic mammal and bird eaters. This data has been proven in exhaustive studies.

What is also happening is that many of these animals are dying very young. While many of the keepers don't bother to have a necropsy performed, those that do are finding out that these snake are dying early of "lifestyle" disease - namely feeding an inappropriate diet.

Using the nutritional information of a rattlesnake and then comparing it to a rat, both prey items have similar protein contents and gross energy profiles. The difference is that a rat has almost 30% more fat.

Still, despite the evidence, people will continue to overfeed their mussuranas a diet rich in fat and then wonder why the heck they die at an early age.

And yet I get the feeling that besides the facts and examples you cited. It will continue to be done. I've been keeping different boids now for close to thirty years. And I never have claimed to be an expert. And have learned at the very least what not to do. It sadened me to see some very old advise surface to defend these practices. But not point out some of these sources also recommend things that some keepers on here claim are archaic. And in all sincerity I really appreciate your contributions, and look forward to more in the future.

There was discussion on over feeding / feeding the other day, hope this helps.