weight gain question

[MitsuMike]

Edit:
Spider ate 21 grams

New weigh in's will be tom night. Moving the Spider into her new 16 qt setup and finally out of quarantine. Plus she pooped and need to change her cage and the Pastel made a mess of blood so need to change his too.

[WesleyTF]

They keep 10% of the food they eat as permenant w8. At leant that's what my science book says

I've heard that, too, but I'm certain it's different for different physiologies, especially somethings as different as warm vs. cold blooded. I imagine a growing snake could convert much more to weight gain than a similar sized frenetic lil' mammal.

[MitsuMike]

24 hours after feeding:
Normal: 158 grams, weight gain: 24 grams, percent gain from food: 100%
Pastel: 112 grams, weight gain: 8 grams, percent gain from food: 44.4%
Spider: 120 grams, weight gain: 11 grams (but pooped before feeding so prob around like 15+ grams), percent gain from food: 52.4% (prob upwards of 70%)

Conclusion thus far is that I need to feed my pastel more. haha. Pastel and Normal will be on 25 gram mice next week and the Spider is having her last week of live, might even try to feed her f/t though.

Next weigh in is after they poo

[JAMills]

I would be interested in what percentage water weight feeder rodents are.

Water is not being converted into body mass, though it would contribute to weight until expelled or evaporated (Do Snakes sweat?)

I don't know what the percentage is for rodents but they say a human is 60% - 75% water by weight depending on the individual (percentage decreases with age and physical factors)

So let's just say 60% water weight for the rodent as an EXAMPLE

A 100g rodent would then actually on be 40g weight not water
Then you would have to figure how much of that 40g is passed as waste,
how much is converted to energy and burned, and how much is converted to body mass (Tissue, bone, fat, ect.)

So 10% is probably a pretty good estimate without actually doing the science

They keep 10% of the food they eat as permenant w8. At leant that's what my science book says

I would be interested in seeing a scientific break down of that supported with good documentation
Too much work for me...I think I will just enjoy my snakes

[MitsuMike]

Update:
Normal and Spider peed so I decided to weigh them

48 hours before feeding
Normal: 148
Spider: 115
Pastel: 113

[WesleyTF]

I would be interested in what percentage water weight feeder rodents are.

Water is not being converted into body mass, though it would contribute to weight until expelled or evaporated (Do Snakes sweat?)

I don't know what the percentage is for rodents but they say a human is 60% - 75% water by weight depending on the individual (percentage decreases with age and physical factors)

So let's just say 60% water weight for the rodent as an EXAMPLE

A 100g rodent would then actually on be 40g weight not water
Then you would have to figure how much of that 40g is passed as waste,
how much is converted to energy and burned, and how much is converted to body mass (Tissue, bone, fat, ect.)

So 10% is probably a pretty good estimate without actually doing the science


I would be interested in seeing a scientific break down of that supported with good documentation
Too much work for me...I think I will just enjoy my snakes

not to be picky, but much of a snake's body mass is water as well, so a significant amount of their mass increase would come from the water they take in. I hadn't really thought about that much, but it's interesting.

Lots of biology texts quote the 10% thing, but it's very generalized.

[JAMills]

Water is not being converted into body mass, though it would contribute to weight until expelled or evaporated (Do Snakes sweat?)

not to be picky, but much of a snake's body mass is water as well, so a significant amount of their mass increase would come from the water they take in. I hadn't really thought about that much, but it's interesting.

Lots of biology texts quote the 10% thing, but it's very generalized.

Your not being picky
I agree with what you said
Yes the water would contribute to the weight gain but not all the water in the prey item will be retained in the animal