Would you purchase from a breeder who advocates power feeding?

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Some people DO define that as power feeding, which is where a lot of the problem lies. There is no actual definition of 'power feeding'

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By "some people do" are you referring to the ones that own one or two snakes for a few months, read a few articles written by a lout, that read or heard that from another lout, and became enlightened experts overnight? J/K:cool: Logically anyone that can add 1+1 and make it equal 2, should be able to logically differ between what exactly is power feeding and what is not. I can however say from experience, every ball python in my collection that was purchased as a hatchling was on a 4 day feeding schedule and are still, sexy,gorgeous, thriving and humping animals, and in addition they are not overweight by any means. Would I advocate this schedule to a full grown adult BP? NO, those I feed once a week. Now another scenario, if I were feeding babies on a 4 day schedule and as they were swallowing the rat I take it upon myself to shove another rat in the snakes mouth then that would be considered probably by most "power feeding."

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Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion

The assertion here is that feeding hatchling ball pythons that way also will result in health issues. But hatchlings don't become obese, so what health issues would it cause?

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Eh, I still cant find that in the OPs first post.

Actually they are asking if we would buy from this breeder or not :P But of course everyone went off subject an endless debate on "Power" feeding to which people who do "it"..what ever their deffinition of it is, will chime in and say yes it is safe, while those who do not like it will say no it is not. It's an endless circle and lately this type of circle is starting to happen in most threads, which slightly annoys me, because the poll does not ask at all that opinion. Though it does have to do with the subject of what the OP asked, but its late and I probably shouldnt be posting in my sleepy state of mind LOL

What I see is a breeder who cares more about breeding than the lifespan of the snake. Would I buy babys from them? IDK, I would take the fact that he clearly states that ( Even if it has no ill effects) he cares more about the money than the snakes, because that is what I get from what he said. I would not buy from them at all if they were doing my Deffiniton of power feeding.

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Originally Posted by Oxylepy

I brought up the risk of it causing the snakes to be obese and how it leads to a shorter life span, and he told me that he'd rather have a female breed for him sooner than live to be 20 years old.

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I voted it depends. In this case no, based on the fact that he is in the mindset of money over an animal's health.

Plus, like others have said not everyone agrees with what powerfeeding is.

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Originally Posted by iCandiBallPythons

By "some people do" are you referring to the ones that own one or two snakes for a few months, read a few articles written by a lout, that read or heard that from another lout, and became enlightened experts overnight? J/K:cool: Logically anyone that can add 1+1 and make it equal 2, should be able to logically differ between what exactly is power feeding and what is not. I can however say from experience, every ball python in my collection that was purchased as a hatchling was on a 4 day feeding schedule and are still, sexy,gorgeous, thriving and humping animals, and in addition they are not overweight by any means. Would I advocate this schedule to a full grown adult BP? NO, those I feed once a week. Now another scenario, if I were feeding babies on a 4 day schedule and as they were swallowing the rat I take it upon myself to shove another rat in the snakes mouth then that would be considered probably by most "power feeding."

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Actually, when I started breeding snakes over 20 years ago, I saw the term and asked about it by snake breeders who had a lot more experience then I and was told that power feeding was when you feed more then you normally would for maintence in order to get the snake to grow faster. A pretty open ended definition if you ask me,.

I don't think I've ever actually met anybody who claimed to power feed by stuffing rodents in their mouths one after the other after the other so the snake ends up swallowing more then it would have. The only time I ever heard of something like that it was being recommended as a way to get weight back on a seriously skinny snake and I think it was called train feeding or something like that.

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Originally Posted by Oxylepy

I'm just wondering because when I got my fire and pastel a couple years back the breeder told me to feed them like 2-3 hoppers every 3 days. Then someone had come in with a fire that they had bought from him and he told me that it's the size a snake should be at 2-3 months (it looked about 500g).

I brought up the risk of it causing the snakes to be obese and how it leads to a shorter life span, and he told me that he'd rather have a female breed for him sooner than live to be 20 years old.

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I don't know where this "Power Feeding" fervor comes from. Feeding a neonate every 2-4 days isn't power feeding. Also depending on the individual snake, yes it can weigh 500 grams at 3 months old. A snake will eat what it wants and will stop when it wants. Now if you're feeding the snake another rodent while it's still swallowing the first, then that's what I consider "Power Feeding". Then you have "Force Feeding" in which you pry the snake's mouth open and manually start the feeding process yourself.

Now that's the difference as I understand it. Lets look at each.

Feeding Every 3 Days-I see nothing wrong with this for the snake's sake. That is unless it leads to either of the 2 options listed below.

Power Feeding-Usually used by a breeder to get their snake up to breeding size quickly. Is this a bad thing? Well, yes and no. Depending on how far you take it. Without knowing exact details it's difficult for someone to judge another. I don't power feed my sub adult snakes, but I know others that do and they have healthy snakes. But I must qualify that statement with these breeders are top notch people. Usually a breeder is going to protect their breeding stock. ***Where this could be used and not be in the best interest for the snake would be a breeder wanting to get a snake up to size quickly because that snake is worth much more money as an adult.***

Force Feeding-Usually used as a tool to save a snake's life due to it not eating for some time. I've had to force feed just one snake in over 20 years of keeping one type of snake or another. The snake was at the time a rare albino sand boa. A newborn that wouldn't eat. I started off with pinky heads and worked my way to complete pinkies. If used for this purpose, I see nothing wrong. I've never known anyone to force feed for any other reason.

Your opinion are in fact yours and I'm not about to change it, but I would be very careful talking about a breeder and thier husbandry practice. This is directed to the members that have responded to your inquiry.

As for questioning the breeder, that's good for the industry. If you don't understand something, ask a question. That way, you will get the answer that will clear up many misconceptions. However, you can also get some incorrect responses. That can be a good and bad thing about asking these types of qeustions on a forum like this. However, the majority will give you correct information and will self-correct the misinformed.

Thanks for the question and I hope we've been able to help you understand this situation.

Jim Smith

Well, the OP asked this question in the first place because of the assumption that 'power feeding' is bad for a snake's health.

Some of us who have been around for a while have seen the photos of 'power fed' snakes--huge, obese bodies with tiny heads that didn't grow in proportion to the length and width of the snake. Whether any of these were ball pythons, I am unsure.

I think 'power feeding' needs to be considered by species. What is true for a boa, or for a Burm, is NOT necessarily true for a ball python.

If you do not see any external indicators of unhealthy growth--ie, the snake is not obese, the snake does not have pinhead syndrome--then there is no reason to believe that there are any internal indicators, either. In other words, feeding a hatchling as much as it will eat in order to get it up to breeding size by the 2nd, or even the first, year...may not have any impact on the snake's health or longevity at all. In fact, there is no reason to think that it does.

Are you sure that underfeeding a snake, in addition to keeping it smaller, doesn't adversely effect its lifespan? We don't know that, either.

I'd rather buy a young snake from someone over feeding than someone under feeding.

With my few snakes, I try to feed as the snake appears to want to be fed.

I have two snakes from the same breeder, very close to the same age.

One of them is ready for food about every 7-10 days. She weighs about 800 gms. She has an average ball python build.

The other one is 1100 gms. She is fairly chunky looking. She starts actively hunting for food every 4 days. Let her go 6 days without and she gets majorly snappy and evil. Her head is broader and substantially longer than the 800gm female and her body is a good 6 inches longer. Her head size is actually bigger in proportion to her body than the female that doesn't eat as much.

I think that snakes are like humans--they have individual appetities and bodies. I offer food every 4-5 days, and if there are no takers it makes my opossum very happy.

Once at a reptile expo I was looking at some corns that were as thick as ball pythons, if not more. The corns were obese, so obese that it was hard to look at them because they were truly grotesque. I consider that to be "scumbag power feeding" at work.

On the other hand, my yearling albino female went through a phase where she wanted a small rat every 3 days, and I let her have them.

As others have said, it is species dependent, and situational. If the breeder is not putting the health of his animals first, I would not buy from him. If any of his animals appear to be in poor health (either obese, underfed, or otherwise ill) I would not buy from him. I simply move on to the tables that have healthy, attractive animals.