new diet for my female.

ok so she used to eat 4 lg mice on feeding day and wont eat rats because one bit her and she just got scared i guess. and ive tried prekilled rats and it was a no go.

so i have been feeding her one every other day.

she seems to be happy with that and doesnt refuse the meal like she did before.

do you think its too much?


oh and she's 1200 grams and a pretty good legnth of 3ft7inchs.

It it recommended that adult bps are fed no less than 7 days apart. I think maybe switching to 2 large mice every 7 days would be better than feeding every other day.
Some even say that feeding too frequently will cause the bp to later go on a fast, but I can't for sure say that's a fact.

what in the hell?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by butters!

what in the hell?

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lol:rofl:


WHAT????

Hi,

I'm not sure I know what the question is...... But that never stopped me before so here we go. :D

It's better to feed her multiple prey items at one sitting than to constantly have her digesting by offering every second day I think.

Their digestive system is designed to shut down between meals in a way mamals cannot - there was a good post explaining the process somewhere but I cannot find the link at the moment.

What meals was she refusing aside from the rats she doesn't want? Has she recently only wanted three mice or something similar?

It might be an idea to weigh the 4 mice she would normally eat to compare to the 10-15% of bodyweight rule - though that rules doesn't really apply once they get up to near breeding size for me. I feed nothing larger than a small rat to any of my snakes following a post made on here that this makes for a more consistent feeding pattern.

Small rats for me are around the 60g mark but it varies a bit depending on supplier.


dr del

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dr del

Hi,

I'm not sure I know what the question is...... But that never stopped me before so here we go. :D

It's better to feed her multiple prey items at one sitting than to constantly have her digesting by offering every second day I think.

Their digestive system is designed to shut down between meals in a way mamals cannot - there was a good post explaining the process somewhere but I cannot find the link at the moment.

What meals was she refusing aside from the rats she doesn't want? Has she recently only wanted three mice or something similar?

It might be an idea to weigh the 4 mice she would normally eat to compare to the 10-15% of bodyweight rule - though that rules doesn't really apply once they get up to near breeding size for me. I feed nothing larger than a small rat to any of my snakes following a post made on here that this makes for a more consistent feeding pattern.

Small rats for me are around the 60g mark but it varies a bit depending on supplier.


dr del

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hey Doc!

ok well she would always refuse to eat more that 3 mice.
only once did she eat 5 in one sitting.

she refuses rats, even weaned and prekilled.
f/t are not an option with her because same as prekilled, she likes to eat alone(no one watching) and likes to stalk her prey.

recently she only eats one mouse a sitting.
but 2 days later she is in striking mode when ever i walk in front of the tank.
and its clear she is hungry.

i heard someone say before on a post that they feed every 3rd day because their bp was a problem feeder and this was their solution. so i applied it to her.

and its a hit. she is gaining weight steadily and not refusing meals like before.

one person said that they feed 3 times a week for the same reasons.
so i figured maybe she would rather, u know?

Hmmm,

I take it you tried not offering food for a couple of weeks then offering a small rat?

My normal male is a fussy little beggar on occasion and will refuse his rat but will take a couple of mice. Since that doesn't fill him up however he will eventually take the rat (though it can take a month of mice feedings ) and be fine for another couple of months. :rolleyes:

I will feed skinny hatchlings every three days on occasion but I'm happier with slower growth and a 5 day schedule - and anything over 500g I stick to a 7 day schedule as I think having a set feeding timeline actually helps them eat better.

Plus if they know when feeding day is it makes it a little less stressful for me to stick my paw into the tank on the other days. :D


dr del

The obvious "best case" solution here is to stop caving in to the snake's voiceless "demands", and start working hard to convert her to eventually feed on (preferably f/t) medium rats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

The obvious "best case" solution here is to stop caving in to the snake's voiceless "demands", and start working hard to convert her to eventually feed on (preferably f/t) medium rats.

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One of my snakes just went through a 9-month fast, since she only wanted to eat ASFs this year (which are illegal here, but I eventually found a bag of frozen). So it's nice to suggest tough love, but those BP temper tantrums can last a LONG time!! :cool: So I just try to meet their demands, since I don't breed my own prey... and it doesn't matter what I buy, once I'm at the pet store or on RodentPro.com.

To the OP, I would agree with Dr Del on not feeding so often... it's gotta be hard on their digestive system, unless it's a really small or high-metabolism snake (like a baby corn). I give my large mouse-only eaters 2-4 adults per feeding, and they're growing at a nice rate. If they only take 1-2 in that feeding, I might offer 5 days later instead, but otherwise I assume that filled them up. If you're really concerned, maybe you should try finding larger prey? My regular pet shop sells adults that are practically hopper-sized, but there's another (more expensive and less convenient) store with LARGE adults... so if I'm really motivated to give them a more filling meal, I'll try to get to that shop instead. Do you breed your own mice?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lolo76

One of my snakes just went through a 9-month fast, since she only wanted to eat ASFs this year (which are illegal here, but I eventually found a bag of frozen). So it's nice to suggest tough love, but those BP temper tantrums can last a LONG time!! :cool: So I just try to meet their demands, since I don't breed my own prey... and it doesn't matter what I buy, once I'm at the pet store or on RodentPro.com.

To the OP, I would agree with Dr Del on not feeding so often... it's gotta be hard on their digestive system, unless it's a really small or high-metabolism snake (like a baby corn). I give my large mouse-only eaters 2-4 adults per feeding, and they're growing at a nice rate. If they only take 1-2 in that feeding, I might offer 5 days later instead, but otherwise I assume that filled them up. If you're really concerned, maybe you should try finding larger prey? My regular pet shop sells adults that are practically hopper-sized, but there's another (more expensive and less convenient) store with LARGE adults... so if I'm really motivated to give them a more filling meal, I'll try to get to that shop instead. Do you breed your own mice?

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And their heart - studies show that a python's heart expands right after a meal, thought to aid in digestion. That can't be good for her all the time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dr del

Hi,

I'm not sure I know what the question is...... But that never stopped me before so here we go. :D

It's better to feed her multiple prey items at one sitting than to constantly have her digesting by offering every second day I think.

Their digestive system is designed to shut down between meals in a way mamals cannot - there was a good post explaining the process somewhere but I cannot find the link at the moment.

What meals was she refusing aside from the rats she doesn't want? Has she recently only wanted three mice or something similar?

It might be an idea to weigh the 4 mice she would normally eat to compare to the 10-15% of bodyweight rule - though that rules doesn't really apply once they get up to near breeding size for me. I feed nothing larger than a small rat to any of my snakes following a post made on here that this makes for a more consistent feeding pattern.

Small rats for me are around the 60g mark but it varies a bit depending on supplier.


dr del

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You need to find this info for Big Gunns because BG is not so sure a bunch of smaller meals isn't better...or at least just as good.

BG knows one thing for sure. Your animal will grow faster with a bunch of smaller meals. Now is this bad? BG is not so sure. BG hasn't heard of any large breeders complaining of their animals dropping dead at an early age, so who knows????

Now BG knows we are different than snakes, but a lot of smaller meals are better for us than one large one. It takes a lot longer to digest a large meal, so the animals digestive system is working harder. BG doesn't know which one is "best" for sure, but he does know that there doesn't seem to be a problem with Balls eating many small meals.

BG will also point this out. He's said this before. About a month or so after baby Balls come in each year the "Bush babies" start coming in. These are babies that were born in the wild and were caught....unlike the imported fresh hatch ones where they were taken from the eggs on a "farm. Well....these "Bush babies" are huge compared to the others that came in straight from the egg and BG has fed weekly for a month or so. This tells BG that these snakes are eating everything in sight in the wild. If something passes their way....they eat it. They don't say to themselves "gotta wait a week or my heart is gonna work too hard...you can pass by Mr. Mouse". They eat that mouse.

So what's BG's final verdict. BG believes you can feed your Ball Python either way and it will be fine. Think about it. It's a Ball Python...it knows when it's full. It won't eat if it is.:gj:

Hi,

Yes - we're trying to avoid it stopping eating. :P

Seriously though.

I understand the theory of smaller, but more regular, meals - that's what I am doing with a small rat every 5-7 days rather than a medium or large rat really. I have found that I do get a lot less fasts compared to my old style of medium rats every 7 days. Whether that means fasts are triggered more by short term feelings of being "full" rather than an overall level of feeding could be a fun thing to find out - it's beyond my ability to find out though. :rolleyes:

But I think feeding every other day is probably taking things a bit too far. This isn't a baby snake and I'm not sure how the metabolism changes in regards to a 1200g snake that is still growing but not at the same rate as a hatchling. Every 5 days should definately be fine but I'm not certain I'd feel happy feeding mine every 3 days for example after they got a bit of growth on them.

I am curious to hear more about the bush babies though as I have never dealt with any of those. Might be a UK thing that they do not get imported or I may have simply never asked the right company - either is possible. :)

The WC ones we tend to see over here are about 700g+ and are a bit of a nightmare to get started, especially if you feed F/T which most people over here do fairly explusively.

Could it simply be that, in the wild, any burrow a baby BP investigates containing food will have a whole litter in it an they will eat all of them at one sitting? Or do they camp in the burrow and eat them over a period of days or just eat their fill and then move on?

Just wondering how the feeding/ length of time in the burrow would be affected by the adults of the prey species etc.

Is there a season where they will be finding loads of small mammals followed by leaner times or is the level of small sized rodents fairly constant? I ask because if the rodent size is seasonal then the bush babies may have to gorge themselves at the start of their life in order to be large enough to tackle the rodents available out of season.

So, while they are intially larger than the ones we are keeping, ours continue to grow at their lower rate but without any seasonal drops in growth rate and actually end up being at least the same size if not larger?

I don't know if anyone has done any research into that though.

But, since I can't find the post on this site, here are a few external links with what looks to be the same info.

Link 1.

Link 2.

I look forward to hearing your take on them. :)


dr del

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sookieball

ok so she used to eat 4 lg mice on feeding day and wont eat rats because one bit her and she just got scared i guess. and ive tried prekilled rats and it was a no go.

so i have been feeding her one every other day.

she seems to be happy with that and doesnt refuse the meal like she did before.

do you think its too much?


oh and she's 1200 grams and a pretty good legnth of 3ft7inchs.

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Duplicated threads were merged and moved in the appropriate section :gj:

Dr. Del

i remember reading the same thread about snakes and digestion. they basically shut down everything thats not needed for digestion and everything else like heart, BP, digestion jumps up to something like 200% so the body is working overload to digest quickly. i also agree with feeding once every 7. in my not so expert opinion is better on their little hearts

The Bush babies come in around 200 grams or so, not those nightmare 700 gram ones. These Bush babies do much better, but BG still prefers to have a fresh hatch baby. They are much less likely to have any parasites.


BG has no idea what way is best, but he knows what he has seen from personal experience. It doesn't seem to bother them to feed them smaller meals more often. Which one is best??? BG has no idea.....and he's too lazy to do a scientific study on it.:D

thanks for everyone for their opinions!!!
and advice.