What is 'powerfeeding' exactly?

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Originally Posted by kenatk

Adam I'll get as much information as I can together for you, no problem ;) A lot of what I have so far I learned from my vet (she's the only dedicated herp vet in my area), I'll find out where she got her data and see if I may collect some myself for ya.

I'll be in touch.

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Awesome! ... Thank you!

-adam

This IS really cool!! :D :D I think I am going to learn alot more thru this thread than I originally intended! Thanks guys.

Hey kenatk, would you mind "keeping me in the loop" if/when you do find hard evidence for Adam? I am here to learn to, and if my grandson needs to do science project in a few years, I want to be able to 'help' :rolleyes:

vinnimac, yeah no problem, I'll publish the information in a thread on here so everybody can read the data and stuff. Should be pretty good ;)

Reading through some old threads and this caught my eye, thought I'd dig this one up and since I'm new here it's ok right?, lol. I was wondering if any scientific evidence was ever posted? I too have heard these rumor of detrimental over feeding, and have a couple takes on it as well. I personally don't think it's possible to overfeed a ball, without stuffing food down it's throat. If it's too full, it simply won't eat, and I'm sure almost everyone here has had a ball fast on them.

Couple opinions on some statements on here. First the dehydration. I think this is very dubious. While it is true that it takes a certain amount of water for digestion, any lack thereof will be compensated by the snake simply by drinking water. The total amount needed is minimal, as mammals have a higher water content than reptiles to begin with, so they actually gain fluid just by eating. In fact, in my limited experience, animals on the verge of being "powerfed" indicitively have watery/creamy excrement, as is evident of the increase water expulsion by the kidneys.

Next is the assumption that there's a shock on the snakes system by digestion. What i have read as far as scientific articles, the only documented "shock" on a snakes digestive system is in times of feast or famine. For instance, snakes that have long fasting times actually turn off thier digestive systems and they degenerate to a degree. It was shown that digestion times for the first feeding after one of these fasts took longer than subsequent feeding since the digestive system had to in essense, reboot. This however, shouldn't ever be a problem with a captive snake. The second is the assumption that stomach acids are necessary for digestion, which isn't really true. The stomach acids duty is to start breakdown through hydrolosis, but primarily it's to kill microorganisms and parasites. Feeding frozens nearly eliminates this problem in captives versus wild snakes. The primary enzymes responsible are released after food passes through the pyloric sphincter. Secondly, the assumption that these enzymes and even hcl, is a biologically "overly expensive" process is incorrect. I personally don't see any evidence that there is a shock to the digestive system in the above regards.

"Powerfeeding", or what I'll call feeding "ad libitum" (as I would never suggest forcing anything to eat is good) certainly accomplishes one certain goal: Growing snakes quickly for breeding. I have yet to see an obese young snake. Thier energy is used for growth rather than stored as in adult animals. Once thier adult size is reached( or the minimum comfortable size for breeding), there's really no reason to powerfeed regardless. Doing so will result in an obese snake, which is an entirely different subject. Obesity is undeniably detrimental.

My personal opinion, is that you can feed a growing ball as much food as it will take(ad libitum, which is normally about every three days). If it is indeed too much, it will let you know in several ways. 1. It will simply refuse to eat. 2. You'll get watery/excessively smelly/or partially undigested excrement 3. Obesity rather than growth is occuring. 4. It may regurgitate(which has more to do with the size of a meal than frequency). I personally feed my balls ad libitum and watch thier excrement for clues as to where i need to go with thier diet. If the signs point out that they may not be getting the maximun nutritional load/or completely digesting and reabsorbing the water from the food given, I'll back off for a few days. I'm sure as I raise more balls, there will be exceptions to every rule though. Having more experience with monitors, I can tell you for a fact that over feeding and obesity is a FAR bigger problem than with ball pythons. My big salvator eats far less frequently than is recommended because he has a major obesity problem since adulthood(as little as once every 2-3 weeks). But, even in salvators with a well documented obesity issues, i have yet to see an obese young monitor regardless of how much food they are given. And, as some of you know, they'll gorge themselves until their excrement is so undigested and putrid, that you'll have to evacuate your house!!!!, but still show no sign of anything detrmental health wise.

Just my .02, and it's worth just about that, lol. Again, if anything scientific has been posted, please point it out.

edited for the normal typos and nonsense run on sentences that get typed at 2:30AM, lol.