Is it time for bigger food

Two weeks ago i noticed some new feeding related behavior in Irwin, and more so this week. 2 weeks ago, about 14 days after his last meal and about 4 or 5 days after he pooped, i noticed that he was, what appeared to be, hungry. He came out to meet me when i checked on him - he never does that unless its feeding day and he can smell the rat. I easily booped him out of it and we had a very nice play-date but the next day i went out and got the biggest small rat i could find. He ate it as quickly or quicker than any meal he's ever had.
Fast forward to yesterday - again with the hunger routine - i feed him again today and he eats it even faster, and this time, he stayed in feeding mode after he was done! Now i know that this is not uncommon among snakes, but it has never happened with Irwin before. Usually after he's done he is just sleepy and content and curls up in his warm hide for a day, but today even a half hour after he'd finished, not only was he still roaming his cage, but when i walked by he tracked me, i mean really tracked me - not just coming out to say "hi" like before.
So is he ready for medium rats? or (and this is just a theory) is he finally getting comfortable enough around me to act like a normal snake? As of this week i've had him for 7 months, ( he is exactly 2 years and 4 months old) and although i haven't noted any other significant behavior changes, it occurs to me that maybe he's finally overcome some level of anxiety about his safety/security here and no longer feels the need to hide after he eats???
Now i like to feed more conservatively anyway, and it has been suggested to me and i am inclined to believe that a hungry boa is happier and more fun than a stuffed one, but if i am going to be spacing out his meals, i would at least like them to be satisfactory in size.
Unfortunately i can not tell you how heavy he is, only that is is over 3'8" (i measured him a month ago) but i have some screen grabs of today's feeding and the one 2 weeks ago for reference.


Today: (he has never come straight out like that before)
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...52094692_o.jpg

Today: rat's midsection compared to his
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...80&oe=586DAF3F


2 weeks ago: its blurry, but you get a pretty good idea of the size.
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...17&oe=58A7836A

i wish i had good shots of the lumps they left, but not only was he out of frame, but i can tell you they were hardly noticeable.

What do y'all think??

If he is over 2 years old, I would say yes bump him to mediums. Especially since you said, the smalls barely leave a lump. I feed my sunglow who is about 5' and almost 3 years old mediums and smalls. I just kind of vary it up with each feeding. Same goes for my large girl who is 6-7'. She gets rabbits some weeks and large rats others. Try a small medium and see how big of lump it leaves. it shouldn't look like a football but it should be noticeable.

Also all my snakes even after eating are still alert and would gladly take seconds or thirds. There is nothing wrong with them still being a little hungry after eating. They aren't pythons so you don't want to stuff them but also you don't want to starve them but then again, it would pretty hard to starve a boa as they can go a LONG time without food and no ill effects.

Also my sunglow sometimes gets 2 smalls or 1 medium and 1 small depending if my BP decides she isn't hungry. So nothing wrong with varying their food. Some feedings give them a extra healthy portion, other feedings, give them a smaller portion.

Also boas are always hungry so them tracking you is pretty normal. Whenever I open either of my gals' cages, they perk up and zoom up to check me out. When they smell its just me and no food, they usually lay down or keep coming and hang their head out the front door of the cage.

He's a little small for mediums imo. I don't start feeding mediums until they're about 5', he should be eating meals that leave no bulge. Honestly, from the pictures you posted, smalls look plenty large enough. If that was the smallest small you could find, just start feeding large small rats.

My ghost girl is about 3.5'-4' and I'm feeding her weaned rats, she isn't even on smalls yet. I want her to put on a bit more size.

You can try a medium, but if he isn't even 4' it's probably going to be too much. If it is a large meal, give him an extra week or two before you offer another meal. (Edit to add, also buy the small mediums. I'm not sure where you buy your food from but I know Layne Labs splits their mediums into 2 sizes. They may still be a bit large, but more likely to be appropriately-sized than a normal medium. If you get your rodents from a pet store, just look on their site to see the weight range and make sure you buy a rat within that range.)

Well different places size their stuff different. Where I buy my rats, the small F/T rats are about 3". The small mediums are about 4". If you are buying locally, best bet is just eyeball the thickness of your snake at its widest point and buy something a little thicker than that. BCI can handle decent sized meals so I wouldn't worry about regurgitation. I've fed my 5' sunglow gal 2 medium rats back to back and she was fine. She definitely had a lump lol. I've also fed my big girl rabbits that were probably too big for her but she got them down and was fine. I wouldn't make it a habit of feeding too large all the time though. That's why I said vary the size. A medium one feeding, then a small next feeding or 2, then a medium etc

And it is true that a hungry boa is more active than a full one which again is why I say feed different sizes. The longer you have the snake, you will learn to read them and know when they are hungry or I should say when they need food as a healthy boa is always hungry.

Bottomline, your boa but if it was me, I would try the next size up or at least have a look at it. I always hated when my snakes hit the halfway point in food where they are a little too small for the next big step but too large for the step they are on now. Luckily for me, the place I go, I pretty much have free run of their freezer so I can pick out exactly what size I need for those inbetween times. And like Cloud said, try a large small or small medium assuming your rat supplier breaks it down into those or just ask to look through their bags of frozen and pick the one you like.

Yeah it's not so much a worry of regurgitation for me, but of overfeeding. A snake being fed on a regular schedule should be fed smaller meals less often. If I feed something a bit too big I space it out. For babies I just add a week or two, for adults I double the time in between meals and for both I'll feed a smaller meal the next time.

If they're halfway between sizes I really don't worry about it. They'll grow just fine on the smaller meals. If they're at the halfway point it doesn't take them long at all to make the jump (assuming they're juveniles and not adults). With my boa constrictors I 100% do not double up feeding, even when the weight of the combined prey items are less than the weight of the single prey item the next size up it causes rapid growth in weight and length. Steady growth is best.

The pet store I used to buy from would weigh my feeders if I asked because sometimes their sizings are way off from the norm. So see if they'll do that, then aim for rats in the small medium size range. If it leaves a large bulge I'd go a size down. At 2 years I personally would prefer to not see a bulge at all though, as adults you shouldn't be able to tell they've just eaten. This is assuming you're feeding them regularly on a 4-6 week schedule, or at least 3-4 weeks for a dwarf. If you're only feeding large meals a few times a year spaced out then that's fine, but snakes fed regularly benefit from less food at one time.


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That feeder looks to be the perfect size. You don't want feeders leaving big lumps in boas. Boas and pythons can stay in 'food mode' for up to an hour after feeding (which is one of the reasons feeding in a separate container is not recommended).
He looks like he has a nice solid square shape, that is ideal. :)

I have to disagree that a prey item leaving a lump of some size in the animal is a bad thing. I will admit most of my snake experience is pythons, but I also keep a number of colubrids and with them you don't want large lumps after a feeding. The moto I go by with them and now my boas is for the prey item to leave a noticeable but not overly large lump. In my opinion if you're feeding a prey item that doesn't leave a lump at all then it's almost like underfeeding. Now there are exceptions to this rule, such as males that aren't being bred or fat snakes, but for the most part the prey item should leave a bit of a lump in the animal. This is again one of those topics that's going to be colored by personal opinions, and everyone has one, in the end if you feel like you want to move him up to mediums do it. Feed him mediums a couple times see how he reacts and go from there. My new hypo salmon boy is about 5ish foot long and is eating FT large rats. They aren't huge larges, but they are good sized and the lump they leave is just barely noticeable so if you ask me that's fine.

Like a couple others have said, snakes are always hungry and will just keep eating if given the chance. They are opportunistic ambush predators and they go through long periods in the wild where they don't eat. believe me when I say that there are some snakes, like the giant pythons that are bottomless pits where food just disappears.

Again though like I said this is a lot of opinion as long as your snake is happy and healthy that's all that really matters. And I'm sure everyone on here will agree with me on that :) on a side not, beautiful boy you have there.

It's interesting, because I had always heard about the snake staying in feed mode but I've never actually witnessed it myself – it was actually kind of exciting to see him so alert and on the prowl. I think I may investigate some mediums though they are in opaque bags so I have to really just feel them, I think the smallest of the mediums might be a good option.

After everything I've read on obesity and fatty liver disease I'll have to disagree as well. Snakes need far less than what you think to survive, or even breed.

When eating regularly it really is important to lower the prey size. If you're only feeding them a few times a year, larger prey items can work, but honestly it's healthier to feed smaller meals "more" often (less often than most people do but more often than when being fed larger meals).

It is way too easy to overfeed a snake at the cost of its life. Not many people like to talk about it out in the open but obesity is a really common killer in captive reptiles.

Even snakes fed conservatively have succumbed to it, so that just goes to show how little they need.

They can be asymptomatic into adulthood before it kills them, but it will always cut their life drastically short.

I also want to add a LOT of instances of fatty liver disease I've found have occurred during the breeding season. Same story: female is pumped up for breeding, "mysteriously" dies. Oftentimes a necropsy shows the ova are being reabsorbed. Overfeeding female boas leads to complications and slugging out.


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hmmm, well i'm not looking to bump up the size jsut for sake of over feeding, but let me ask you, what do you think accounts for the sudden emergence of the "feed-mode" behavior - do you thnkk maybe the smalls were a little big for him, and now he has grown into him and is, for the first time, not over-stuffed after a small.

Anything could be likely, some snakes do sometimes go through periods where their feeding response skyrockets. He definitely doesn't look underfed.

I have heard of instances where people put boas on a diet after being overfed and they turned kinda nasty and had an increase in feeding response. It can take several months but they can return to normal later on. Not everybody updates on their snakes once they put them on a diet but the ones that have generally say they had calmed down after awhile. Again, it could take some months but it's best for his health. Whether you try bumping him up to mediums or not is up to you but I stand by my opinion there's no need at his current size.


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I imagine it must be a sort of pain response because when a boa is overfed the fat travels to the liver. Putting them on a diet rather than withholding food can reverse the fat build up in the liver, and I can imagine that doesn't feel too lovely.


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That's an interesting though, well I guess I'll let discretion be the better part of husbandry and stick to smalls. Incidentally, he's been a great joy to handle lately, and I usually stretch his feeding out a bit longer than 2 weeks. It's just the hunger behavior convinced me to feed right away a few weeks ago and most recently I actually wanted to get him fed sooner rather than later b/c he's due to start a shed cycle in about 2 weeks and he always abstains from eating and pooping during the entire time so I wanted to get another meal in and out of him before the cycle starts.

Snakes go through growth spurts where they want to eat a lot and grow fast. Other times, they slow way down. There is nothing wrong with stepping up the size as long as its within reason. Like I said, a noticeable lump I find acceptable but something that looks like it ate a football and has to be rolled onto the hot spot would be a bad idea. I kind of can read my boas and know when they are hungry as they pace and push and are very active. This usually happens around the 2 week mark. I couldn't go a month as they would break down their cages and probably try and eat me :P Also remember, females generally will eat more than males. Most of the people I've talked to as well as the Boaphile feed their males once a month but females get fed every 2-3 weeks. I do generally lean on the smaller side as like I said, I feed every 2-3 weeks so usually my 6-7' girl gets a large rat with a small rabbit thrown in every few feedings. My 5' sunglow gets a full sized medium rat every 2 weeks. The BP is scared of medium rats lol so she gets a small every 2 weeks and the carpet and baby dumerils get a small adult mouse and mouse hopper respectively every week.

Like I said before, give a medium a shot. Cant hurt to ask the feed store to let you check out their small mediums or to pick the smallest medium and then check it out and see if it looks about as thick as your boa. If they all look too big, then stick to smalls and try and find large smalls.

Lol the only ones that wont eat in shed are my carpet and the BP. Everyone else fine with eating while shedding. Heck I bet they would eat while pooping if I had a rat handy the few times I've caught them dropped a deuce lol.

My babies aren't old enough for monthly feedings all the time, but I plan on spacing my yearlings' feedings out to 4 weeks over this winter to get them ready to be fasted next winter. My boa Cloud went from eating largish meals weekly straight to smaller meals every 4 weeks without any trouble, he never shows signs of hunger unless I'm thawing out food or it's his feeding day. Even during his 90 day fast he doesn't act all that different. Sometimes he'll get a little excited, but he appears to mostly just be in breeding mode rather than hungry, since he starts leaving plugs more often and just being active without showing any hunting behavior (tracking me when I go by, posturing to strike if food is nearby, etc). He would eat if I let him I just think it's healthier for them not to eat during the winter.

I feed all my boas small meals spaced out, and the only one that shows hunger behavior is my little anery motley, but all he really does is come out and stare at me during the last few days of his 10 days, doesn't strike or anything.

Definitely doesn't hurt to at least try a really small medium, but I really would avoid large meals.

All my snakes, regardless of species, and the fact I feed them so conservatively, begin to start refusing food in shed as they get older. Even the retic isn't all that enthused generally, and my normally voracious eastern garter (he will fly through the air to latch onto my finger even though I'm pretty much feeding him as much as he can eat) turns down food during a shed cycle. You must be lucky Sauzo. Lol

(My bp doesn't shy away from mediums but he does start refusing food after he eats a couple in a row, even if I space them out to every 3 weeks. If I feed them for too long he only eats every 2 months.)


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In my experience of only seven snakes I find feeding pretty much individualized. I highly encourage experimentation with a common sense approach. That's how we learn and add to our and everyone's knowledge base. You have to remember that these snakes are living creatures, thus everything is not written in stone.

While I do believe that the smallest or adequate meal spread over longer periods is best, this does not hold true for all snakes. I want to make it clear that my snakes are pets and handled at various times. I believe that adds to the feeding equation. For example if you only handle at cage cleaning time and or infrequently you don't care if the snake is in feed mode more often and tracks you. On the other hand, when mine start acting this way I feed them right away even though it is early, or I feed larger meals. This way I can handle them in a few days without fear of being bitten. Like most folks here, I keep a detailed log on feeding.

Now of course you need to factor in the sex of the snake, is it still visibly growing, time of year, and breeding.

My small boa, 5.5 -6 feet has the girth of a Coke can at her largest part. I was feeding her 2 mediums every two weeks. Then she started started tracking and getting food aggressive. I went to a large every 3-4 weeks which worked for a while at preventing aggression. But then I had to go to a Jumbo Rat every 3-4 weeks which works fantastic! But the last 2-3 feedings I backed her down to a large to see if it would suffice and it did!
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...4995e29cf5.png
Elenore, the small girl tracking me.

To show that I am not nuts, My big Boa, 7ft and the girth of a 1/2 gal of milk, and square shaped, was being fed 2 Jumbos every 1-2 wks before I got him. I immediately cut that meal in half and doubled the time between feedings. He has not shown any aggression in almost a year.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...f739120f64.png
Punch, the big'un getting some exercise.

My adult BP was at just one Med a month. Then she got insanely cage aggressive. I've fed her as much as 4 mediums, to a large and medium, all the way to Jumbo! Yes, a Jumbo is considered hieracy by the community, but that keeps her calm. She won't get overfed because she goes on feeding strike each winter AND always has.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...b66180592a.png
Elvira nice and calm on bigger meals spread out.


Dkatz4, if your snake were mine, a pet that is handled frequently, I would try a medium rat or two smalls and see if that changes his behavior. Of course spread the time between feedings as well. At 2.33 years old, he is still growing moderately, and the nutrition will be used. If he refuses or regurges (which I doubt), then you know that he not ready yet.

Also, if his tail starts to get flabby and losing shape, then back off.

BOA HIPS!!!!!....starts humming Sir Mixalot big butts.....

Do you all find that hunger behavior is associated with handling bites? Not food mistakes, but out of the cage normal handling unprovoked striking? I have always "hook" trained him even though up until now he's never actually shown any sort of food response when I open the cage I still boop gently with a paper towel tube before handling – this worked last week and the other day when he actually was acting hungry and I took him out anyway. So I guess I have a 100% success rate so far but with only two trials I'm not exactly ready to publish. So far Irwin has been the tamest and most passive pet I've ever had, reptilian or otherwise – but as I mentioned, it has been just over half a year so there may be aspects of his "personality" that I have not experienced yet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

Do you all find that hunger behavior is associated with handling bites? Not food mistakes, but out of the cage normal handling unprovoked striking? I have always "hook" trained him even though up until now he's never actually shown any sort of food response when I open the cage I still boop gently with a paper towel tube before handling – this worked last week and the other day when he actually was acting hungry and I took him out anyway. So I guess I have a 100% success rate so far but with only two trials I'm not exactly ready to publish. So far Irwin has been the tamest and most passive pet I've ever had, reptilian or otherwise – but as I mentioned, it has been just over half a year so there may be aspects of his "personality" that I have not experienced yet.

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As far as bites "associated" with hunger behavior, I've only ever had that happen with my larger snakes. I took a hit from my anaconda because she could smell food and decided my thumb looked like a rat. Not gonna lie it hurt, a lot, she has an incredibly strong bite. Other than that I've never been bitten in a situation like that, I have a couple snakes that are just jerks and bite me every now and then. My male banana being the biggest culprit of the this, the pretty little butt face. But the boas have never bitten me, given I haven't had them for as long, but in my experience so far, bites like that tend to happen early if they are going to happen. Hook training is a good thing because it gets them used to a pattern, with my tiger retic I used to have I would tap on his cage when I was going to clean or handle him and not when I was going to feed him. He learned that routine incredibly quick and I never had any issues with him. I would still try him on a medium and see if that calms him down a bit, they go through growth spurts from time to time and during that period they use phenomenal amounts of energy. My big female pastel ball python is going through one right now and is just decimating large rats every week. I might move her to a large and a small just to satisfy her because she's getting somewhat cage aggressive, we are also moving towards breeding season so that could be part of it as well and both my girls turn into bottomless pits for at least the next two months.

My point though is exactly what several others have said, there is no harm in giving it a shot. I'm not going to tell you to get a large and feed it to him because that wouldn't be a good idea based on the size of him I can see in those pictures. But go get a smaller medium and see how he looks after eating it and go from there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dkatz4

Do you all find that hunger behavior is associated with handling bites? Not food mistakes, but out of the cage normal handling unprovoked striking? I have always "hook" trained him even though up until now he's never actually shown any sort of food response when I open the cage I still boop gently with a paper towel tube before handling – this worked last week and the other day when he actually was acting hungry and I took him out anyway. So I guess I have a 100% success rate so far but with only two trials I'm not exactly ready to publish. So far Irwin has been the tamest and most passive pet I've ever had, reptilian or otherwise – but as I mentioned, it has been just over half a year so there may be aspects of his "personality" that I have not experienced yet.

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Only time I've gotten a food related bite was when I was being stupid and handled rats and then tried to reach into my sunglows cage to move her hide she was partially on to make room to feed her. Long story short, snakes can spin around 180 degrees with their neck faster than a human can move their hand out of the way lol. She let go though pretty quick when it didn't taste like a rat. Otherwise if my snakes don't smell food, I can open the doors and reach straight in and grab them. They perk up when the door is opened and start looking around but I'm not sure that is hunger response or just the response to see whats going on.

Me personally I never used hooks. Even my holy terror jungle carpet who struck at anything when I got her, after 3 or 4 bites I got her now to where when she is in doubt, I just put my hand by her face and she sniffs it, knows its me and then just more or less becomes a spazz instead of biting. Now I'm working on unspazzing her which she has good days and bad days. So much feisty and personality in her lol. Most boas are pretty mellow or at least the ones I've seen are. Dumerils are even more so. My little 2 month old dumerils curled up and fell asleep on my hand for about 1.5 hours while I laid in bed watching tv. And this only after 2 weeks of having her lol.

The only snakes I've really heard of being careful around for extra strong feeding responses are retics and burm but then again those snakes get big and I really wouldn't want to get tagged by one of them. I would seriously consider a hook for those guys lol.

Out of the cages, I've never had any of my snakes strike except my carpet who has tried to bite the tv before. She is a bit high strung atm though as I'm still working with her. Everyone else just wants to explore when they come out.