How do you feel about "maintenance diets"???

I would like to hear from both sides on this topic, if I could...from the breeders, and the buyers. I may not really have a reason to be concerned about this , but I AM. Idk about you guys, but I like all my balls nice and plump. To me, that's an indication they have a strong feeding response. For me, I simply DESPISE maintenance diets. Every baby ball I have ever sold was nice and round when it went home, and I feed babies every 5 days....but me and my husband are only small scale breeders, producing 2-6 clutches a year. I recently added a baby to my collection, and the breeder gave me the snake's feeding card. I keep a composition book as a "feeding logbook" to keep track of all my snakes feeding,breeding, and weight gain records, so as usual I just made a new entry for this snake, and added in its hatch date and all of the feeding dates. I quickly noticed there were many gaps... some 2 weeks, and one in particular where this poor baby was not fed for a whole month!!!! I thought, well maybe it was offered, but didn't eat. But I don't think so...24 hours after it settled into its tub in quarantine I offered it a meal, cuz it looked a little thin...and it snatched it right up! Hatch date is 10/2/2012....only about 125 grams :( Im sorry but IMO, this is unacceptable. I know big breeders who have 100s, maybe even 1000's of animals cant really pay too much attention to individuals, but isn't there a feeding schedule they keep or something? I know this baby will gain weight and be nice and "bally" in my care, but jeez. Id like to know your opinions, viewpoints and comments on this, and if anybody else feels the same way.

I know some snakes, like boas, can become overweight because they do eat EVERYTIME you offer food. Then sometimes you have to cut them back because they will actually eat too much it starts to affect their health.

I wasn't aware that snakes, esp bps could become fat........hmm:weirdface

My baby BP gets one mouse every 5 days, last feeding I gave him two because he looked really hungry and he's a tad thin (he took the mouse off the tongs, something he had yet to do with me, and was sticking his head out looking for more). But my male corn is on a diet, the female isn't, but he's fat, and needs to lose some weight. I'm not cutting down on the number of feedings, just how much he gets, down from 2 mice to 1 every 10 days. Believe me, he would eat 5 mice a feeding if I let him :P

My point is that 1 month for a baby is unacceptable I agree, but sometimes snakes are over weight and need to go on a diet so they won't have other health issues.

Yeah I've never seen one in person, but some snakes have suppperrrr slow metabolisms, like my dumerils boa, so if I fed her EVERYTIME she wanted to eat, which would be EVERYDAY lol, she would probably become obese. I know crazy right? :weirdface never really think about snakes becoming fat haha

There's no such thing as a "maintenance" diet for a juvenile animal. The point of a maintenance diet is to MAINTAIN the weight of an adult animal, to neither gain nor lose weight. An overweight animal is put on a weight-loss diet, and a growing or underweight animal would get a growth diet. Anybody attempting to feed a baby a "maintenance" diet is lazy and/or mistaken.

That doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong to feed a young animal at a slower rate as long as it doesn't impede their health, and I'm no reptile nutrition expert, but it seems to me that a month between feedings is too long for a hatchling BP. I might find 10-14 days more acceptable depending on meal size, but when the industry standard for babies seems to be 5-7 days, I can't think of a good excuse to push them to 30.

Yeah when my bp was a baby I fed her every five days

Sounds like you are not for sure that the gaps were intentional. Maybe the snake did refuse. As we all know current feeding response is not indicative of past feeding response and vice versa.

Be honest people, how many breeders who hatch many ball pythons every season feed every single hatchling every 5 days? When you hatch a clutch, yes, of course you want to get them feeding as soon as possible. However once they've had 5 meals or so, you probably cut them back a little bit.

Now say you go out and purchase a super awesome multi-gene male who is the perfect match for one of your females that will be breeding next year. Face it, you will feed that super awesome multi-gene male more than you feed any of the hatchlings in your For Sale rack. I can assure you, that male you want to breed does not need to be fed as much as you are feeding him, but you're going to do it anyways because you want him to be big. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing, as long as you're not overdoing it or stuffing 2nd rats in the snakes mouth as it swallows it's first rat. I think people greatly overestimate how much these snakes really need to eat. They only get fed so much because that has become standard, because people have these numbers in their heads about how old or how big a snake should be when it starts breeding. Which is the bottom line when most people are purchasing a snake. If you have 2 snakes, same quality, same price, but one is bigger, generally the bigger one will get bought first.

On the other hand, I viewed a snake at a show from a well-known, supposedly reputable breeder up here in BC and I asked how much she weighed. She was weighed for me, something around 200g. I didn't buy her then, but I saw her pop up on the website about 6 months after the show and struck my fancy yet again. When I asked for her current weight, I was emailed a picture of her weighing pretty much the exact same as she did at the show. To me, that's completely unacceptable. A snake should be growing, not losing weight or staying the same. But it doesn't NEED to be fed every 5 days, in my opinion. You just WANT to feed them every 5 days.

Bottom line: I'll admit it, I'm not going to feed the snakes that I have for sale as much I would feed one from my own collection. There are a couple of reasons for this:

We don't know when we're going to be showing the snakes to potential customers. We live in a very rural area (compared to the core of the reptile community in the Vancouver area) and it's often difficult to coordinate people coming up and viewing the babies with our schedule. Also, I don't transport babies unless the person is sure they are buying them and they are already paid for. I'm not taking any of our babies on a car ride for a little bit of show and tell. So I like to keep the snakes handle-able in case somebody wants to come and take a look.

I like to feed my For Sale babies a little bit less so that they are less reluctant to take food. So many people worry about the ball pythons not eating. Well, usually they WILL eat. If your husbandry is correct, they will eat when they want to. If they refuse a couple of times. DON'T PANIC, don't offer them food every day, that will only serve to stress them out and fear dinner time. If they refuse, give them 10-14 days. Let their tummies rumble. They usually go for it.

And lastly, so many people say they're not in it for the money, but let's face it. We all try to cut costs somewhere, weather it's couponing for the cheapest paper towel, asking the local newspaper for their end rolls, using toilet paper tubes as hides, etc. This is a hobby, and a VERY expensive one at that. Why should we pay to grow your snake up super fast so that you can breed it as soon as possible?

I figure as long as the snakes are healthy, plump, and gaining weight, there is no problem at all.

Some people might disagree with me, and that's okay. If that's the case I'd ask you to find one breeder who feeds their sale-able hatchlings every 5-7 days. I'm sure there are some out there, but I'm also fairly certain the majority do not.

And another point regarding feeding "gaps." I tell people flat out, sometimes when I feed all the babies, I forget to stamp down the dates they ate. Simple as that. Same with sheds. Or I tell myself I will remember who shed, who ate, and who refused and then at the end I'm thinking "oh who am I kidding I messed it up already" and I don't stamp cards because I don't want to guess. I am just BAD at record keeping. I haven't found a good system yet that works. (Still looking!)

So, poor record keeping could also be at play for your gaps in feeding.

i think the professional breeders have quite a strong incentive to keep an optimal feeding regiment, simply because people pay more for well-started babies, and for subadults people pay more if they have more weight.

so when it comes to cutting corners and cutting costs, it will likely be other things, like enclosure size, substrate, hygiene.

adults can get overweight, but babies grow out of it or make up for it by growing faster.

edit: oh, an how i feel about it? i think they should be fed every 5 or every 7 days. you can feed less by feeding smaller size, but im not a fan of these random gaps. im also not a fan of powerfeeding BPs up to breeding size in the minimal amount of time possible.

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Originally Posted by SquamishSerpents

And another point regarding feeding "gaps." I tell people flat out, sometimes when I feed all the babies, I forget to stamp down the dates they ate. Simple as that. Same with sheds. Or I tell myself I will remember who shed, who ate, and who refused and then at the end I'm thinking "oh who am I kidding I messed it up already" and I don't stamp cards because I don't want to guess. I am just BAD at record keeping. I haven't found a good system yet that works. (Still looking!)

So, poor record keeping could also be at play for your gaps in feeding.

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i actually had a deposit to put a hold on this snake. Gaps and bad recordkeeping or not, this animal was def underweight when i got it.

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I feed babies once a week, sometimes more if they seem to need it, and more if all I have on hand are relatively small prey items.

My adults eat every 10 to 14 days, sometimes more often if the prey items are small, definitely on the further end if the prey items are large. Usually it's every 10 days, and my adult snakes are fed medium rats at the largest. Lately it's been easier to get large rats, so I offer those every 14 days instead.

Babies are offered something every week, though.

Some other species of snakes can get quite fat even as babies, to be fair. My first experience keeping a kingsnake right after highschool was to inadvertently make it the most obese kingsnake I had or have ever seen since. I fed it whenever it'd come out and look hungry - so from the time it was a hatchling until I realized what I'd done, I was feeding it every 2 to 3 days, except for a 2 week period when it would shed. This snake had ROLLS it was so fat.

In the end I had to cut it back significantly on food and take it out daily for exercise...and it was still the fattest kingsnake I'd ever seen. Sold it a few years ago to someone who loved its fatness, not sure where it is now but I hope it is happily living out its chubby existence.

-Jen

I'm not sure if this is the norm but I fast my snakes every couple of months. What I've noticed from my own observations in my small collection is that every once in awhile my snakes get finicky about eating and start refusing a bit. I won't feed for 2-3weeks and then after that they pickup the pace and they're all eating fine again. I only do this 2-4 times a year. I'm not sure if that sounds normal or if anyone else does it but it works well for me.

We offer babies food once a week, but I find we get refusals quite a bit on this schedule, and thus babies actually eat every 10-14 days or so. Because of refusals and shedding, I do at times have babies that have gaps as long as 30 days in their feeding card, but that doesn't mean I didn't offer food.

I also have had picky babies that have gaps in feeding, have been assist fed, and as a result of this have been underweight until they really get going. So I don't necessarily think there was malicious or neglectful intent, but I personally don't offer up babies for sale until they are well established feeders, unless they are going to someone with a lot of hatchling experience and they aren't being shipped.

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Originally Posted by LLLReptile

I feed babies once a week, sometimes more if they seem to need it, and more if all I have on hand are relatively small prey items.

My adults eat every 10 to 14 days, sometimes more often if the prey items are small, definitely on the further end if the prey items are large. Usually it's every 10 days, and my adult snakes are fed medium rats at the largest. Lately it's been easier to get large rats, so I offer those every 14 days instead.

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consider keeping the intervals to a minimum of 5 days for young ones/subadults, and 7 days for an adult. dont feed more often just because food on hand is smaller.... in that case, just give a second food item 20 minutes later, maybe even a third.

people have tried out what works better, going from a 7-day cycle to a 3-4 day cycle, or sticking to the 7 day cycle and bumping up the food size. and with the same amount of food, results appear to be better if you stick to the 7 day cycle. In the experiments the snakes that are on the 7 day regiment grow faster than the ones fed more often, with exactly the same amount of food overall.

with large food items and adults, going to 10 or 14 days should be fine if you dont want to breed.

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Originally Posted by Kurtilein

consider keeping the intervals to a minimum of 5 days for young ones/subadults, and 7 days for an adult. dont feed more often just because food on hand is smaller.... in that case, just give a second food item 20 minutes later, maybe even a third.

people have tried out what works better, going from a 7-day cycle to a 3-4 day cycle, or sticking to the 7 day cycle and bumping up the food size. and with the same amount of food, results appear to be better if you stick to the 7 day cycle. In the experiments the snakes that are on the 7 day regiment grow faster than the ones fed more often, with exactly the same amount of food overall.

with large food items and adults, going to 10 or 14 days should be fine if you dont want to breed.

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Thanks for the advice, but my snakes are doing quite well (and have done so for many years) on the regime I have them on. :)

What experiments are you referencing, though? I'd love to read the papers those are in.

-Jen