Female Health

wow. I can't believe I'm just thinking of this now... I guess I've just been in the "I've got small snakes" mode too long. I guess I'll let them eat up the rest of my jumbo mice and then make the switch to small rats.

Lazy was way under fed (over a year with out food) when I got him i thought he was stunted as well. 4 years old 2 + feet and 120+ gr. almost a year later he is 4 feet and 1000 gr. it was a hard start but he made it. :)
I too dont agree with stunting groth in snakes. I have come to learn over the time i have been on this forum that wild ball python babies are lucky to get a meal every 2 weeks and adults the same. some even go a year or a little more with out food. and in the wild some are see up to 5 feet or a little more.

They are very hardy animals. I would say feed her for a year or so then think about breeding her. if she had a bad start give her body time to ajust to her new feeding and the amount of food she is getting in one sitting, but dont power feed her, it is not good for them. IMO

I'm not really too sure about the power feeding thing. Is that feeding every few days or something. I'm going to probably get it to where all my snakes are eating one small rat per week.

I just measured my 340g female. According to the snake measure program she is 30.8" 340g kinda light for that length?

Snakes use food for growth... give them food, and they will grow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Griggs2121

I'm not really too sure about the power feeding thing. Is that feeding every few days or something. I'm going to probably get it to where all my snakes are eating one small rat per week.

---

Rats, mice, whatever, it really doesn't matter. Its more to do with the weight in food they are consuming. While most of the "mousers" I've seen tend to be less robust than rat eaters of similar age, eating multiple mice in one sitting is the same thing as say, 1 small rat.

Feeding multiple smaller meals every 7 days has worked very well for me so far and I have seen very nice growth on my younger snakes as well as my 2-3 y/o females.

Part of our feeding live decision is offering smaller prey items weekly. Not even our biggest female at over 2,300 grams and 4 plus feet in length ever sees anything bigger than a live small rat. Sure she might want two every feeding day and that's just fine. If she feels like one, that's fine too. They seem very aggressive with feeding, don't have large lumps after they eat and are in great shape on this schedule of weekly feeds. Some of our younger BP's might eat 2 fuzzy rats or 1 pup, some of our yearlings eat one or two big pups or wean rats...some of them eat the equivalent volume in multiple adult mice. It seems as long as they get sufficient food for healthy growth offered on a regular basis, they'll do quite fine whether it's mice or rats they prefer. No need to offer more than they need or more often than they need to eat.

hey adam


is there anyway that a ball pythons genetically predetermined size can be stunted? or is it not possible?

are all snakes predetermined to grow a certain size?

and if the right feeding conditions are not being met and the snake is small for his age, he will grow to his genetically predetermined size once the proper conditions are met? right?

I know we are getting off topic of the orginal post, but I've been feeding one adult mouse per week. I'm planning to offer 2 mice each, and see if they'll take. If they do take the 2nd, I feel like thats a lot of food for them, but this isn't over feeding eh?