Fat??

How do you know if your snake is too fat? I have all my babies on a 5 day feeding schedule, feeding 10% of body weight. My male pastel went from 536 g on 6/23 to 616 g on 7/8. He is being put on a diet, but i'm wondering if I should go to 7 days or 10 days?

Too me he doesn't look that fat, but he is a big boy. He also doesn't look proportioned to his head like my female normal. She's a little smaller than him, but her head is bigger. He moves fine, so how do I tell if he is getting too fat?

Here is a pictur of him with my smallest female, 285 g mojave. All weights are current and after a poo.

http://www.iherp.com/Gallery/90669/2...aXahmqtiCd.jpg

I forgot to add that all my babies have reached 500 and will be going to 7 days at 10%. Except my little mojo. Thanks!

If you start seeing skin between scales then your snake is obese. The snake above looks fine to me.

Oh. That's right. no skin is showing. It just seemed like a huge weight gain. I'm going to switch to 7, and check again in another month. Thanks!!

How long and how old is he?

with weight gain like that, are you recording weather you're weighting them empty or with food in their bellies and feces in their gut? Because this will add weight to the animal that they dont actually have.

Yeah I would switch to every 7 days. I switched once the snakes hit 500g.

The snake doesn't look obese but I think feeding every 5 days is a bit much for how big that snake is.

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

Yeah I would switch to every 7 days. I switched once the snakes hit 500g.

The snake doesn't look obese but I think feeding every 5 days is a bit much for how big that snake is.

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I agree! He looks good but he should be on a 7 day schedule.

Almost a 100g increase in less than half of a month? Wow. You should weigh your snake before you feed them and after they poo. An increase like that makes me think there is still a 60g rat in its tummy.

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Originally Posted by stratus_020202

How do you know if your snake is too fat? I have all my babies on a 5 day feeding schedule, feeding 10% of body weight. My male pastel went from 536 g on 6/23 to 616 g on 7/8. He is being put on a diet, but i'm wondering if I should go to 7 days or 10 days?

Too me he doesn't look that fat, but he is a big boy. He also doesn't look proportioned to his head like my female normal. She's a little smaller than him, but her head is bigger. He moves fine, so how do I tell if he is getting too fat?

Here is a pictur of him with my smallest female, 285 g mojave. All weights are current and after a poo.

http://www.iherp.com/Gallery/90669/2...aXahmqtiCd.jpg

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Good to see you are looking at feeding schedules and are concerned over weight gain.

They need weekly feeding when they are growing but once they hit about 800g I'd cut back feeding to once every 10-14 days.

Weigh your balls after they poop, this will give you a more accurate reading of their weight. Weight gain of 50g a month is imo a healthy gain, anything more would indicate that the fat reserves are building up too quick.

Hi,

When you say cut back frequency of feedings at 800g is that already taking into account stopping incresing prey size in line with the "widest part of the snake" guideline?


dr del

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Originally Posted by dr del

Hi,

When you say cut back frequency of feedings at 800g is that already taking into account stopping incresing prey size in line with the "widest part of the snake" guideline?


dr del

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Hey Del

You are correct in your assumption

A prey item as wide as your ball can have the potential to be more than 10-15% of the weight of the snake. When adulthood is reached I'd definitely feed a prey item smaller than the girth, my frequency would be 2 to 3 weeks depending on sex and season. When my balls reach adulthood I'll be looking for slow steady weight gain, even if it is 20g a month. IMO, as long as the snake is putting on weight it is getting all the nutrition it needs to be fit and healthy. My females would get maybe 10-12 more meals a years than my males.

Naturally one has to look at the nutritional needs of males vs females and what season they are in. Females use a lot of energy to produce eggs and I would aim to get the female to the same breeding weight each season with perhaps 10% extra weight year on year. No pushing hard to get up to weight for my guys n gals.

Understand the above points are my untested thoughts on the matter, and are subject to change but only via my experience....

Over the past month or so I have come to realize that we may be overfeeding our balls. We have just started the overfeeding debate here in South Africa on a local forum and it should be interesting....
http://www.sareptiles.co.za/forum/vi...136236#p136236

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Originally Posted by unrezt

makes me think there is still a 60g rat in its tummy.

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That's how I felt this morning after eating one of those Hardees bologna breakfast biscuits... :rofl: