Proposed Ball Python Feeding Chart

[Annarose15]

Wow so about 3% of body weight for the most part, at least for non breeding adults? Interesting. And you don't have any problem feeders on this regiment? I know it's been said many times over that we generally tend to overfeed, and this definitely makes me reconsider the 10-15% I've always heard tossed around.

I'm with Deborah and Slaw. The 10-15% "rule" applies to hatchlings and juveniles up to ~500g. I feed anything over that weight a small or medium (less likely) rat, once a week. Since I feed F/T, I sometimes have uneaten prey in the first round and then a big female will get seconds. My girls regain their prelay weights with no issue and have had zero issues with laying healthy eggs, and my males go off feed during a small part of breeding season but don't lose any weight. As the OP stated, his opinion was stated, not scientific fact.

[MarkieJ]

Not taking sides here (way too little experience) but "experience" must in some cases give way to scientific data. That's why we don't practice blood letting in human medicine, and realize that dinner shouldn't really be the biggest meal of the day.

Im not saying that y'all's experience is wrong, nor am I siding with the science guy. Just beware of using "experience" to counteract good science.

Problem here is that no scientific evidence was provided. Who's got the time to weigh rats anyway?

[KMG]

First our responses were cliche and now those who eyeball their feeders are sheep. If you took some time to research on the forum you would have found most of us feed within a percentage of the snakes weight.

Eyeballing your feeders, while not scientific, is still very acceptable. After all snakes in the wild don't measure their food. And feeding wild mice you can not be that picky about the feeders size.

My personal practice is to order feeders in the size I need and will need. Now within those some will be on the heavy end and some lite. At that point I do not weigh the feeders and only eyeball them when I decide who gets what. I guess I follow both guidelines.

[GamerAgeDad]

Thank you all for your feedback on my feeding chart. I value your experience and feedback in what you feed your ball pythons. I have watched and talked with people that have an inventory of 30k+ snakes, read several posts on this forum looking specifically for feeding charts, googled countless hours for how much to feed ball pythons, read mainstream pet care guides just to take those into consideration (from big names like Petco and Petsmart) and have never heard of the 10-15% rule. I do not believe this 10-15% to be common knowledge. I am sorry for trying to coin this rule if someone else has already coined it. As far as I know though no one has because I've never seen it before. If you would like to point me to a person that has coined this then I'd be happy to give them credit for it, but if I haven't come across it in my literature search for what to feed ball pythons than it is less common than you think. I merely wished to share my experience of what I think a ball python should be fed given the data that I looked at and get feedback from people because what I got from google and everyone else was just the same line "don't feed more than their girth". There are countless sources of information that pass this rule of thumb along, but practically none that pass the 10-15% rule of thumb along. I'm not a "snake expert" and nor am I claiming to be, that is why I bolded in my post that this was my opinion and was not based off any evidence. Us home snake raisers need something more to go on though other than "oh you should feed it about its size in girth, but not more", because I'm not paying 13 dollars for a medium rat at a local pet shop when I know I should be buying a fixed supply of medium rats when my ball python is about 1 year old at 2 dollars a rat. I wouldn't know at what time period to get the medium rats or how many of them to get if I didn't know the information on this feeding chart. This is why I say that sheep keep saying "you should feed it a about it's size in girth, but not more". Currently this is the herd mentality and if you all want to do this and buy your food supply on the fly and waste money than you go ahead and do that . I however, cannot afford that.

Another thing that I didn't specify is frequency of feeding. I believe food should be offered about every 7 days. There is even less knowledge out there of how much feeding a snake is "too much". I've not seen one study on what is "over eating" to a snake. As at least one of you has said, snakes just eat in the wild whenever they feel like it. I can tell you though that according to "The Longevity Diet" (the people that made mice that live to 3 months max live 6 months max, doubling their life span) the theory goes if one restricts the diet of any animal by a certain % and only gives the animal the nourishment they need and not anything excessive, than the animal can live a much longer, happier, healthier life. Happier animals will probably bite less .

Anyway, I made this thread to present a feeding chart for ball pythons because I couldn't find one initially. As I said I found one while I was writing the post so I included it in there. I think my feeding chart presents some good information for newbies and I will probably refine it further given information posted to this thread. I would like this discussion to keep going if anyone has any other opinions that are based off of some good reasoning as to how much to feed to ball pythons and when to feed it. Thank you again for your input and time.

[MrLang]

I have watched and talked with people that have an inventory of 30k+ snakes, read several posts on this forum looking specifically for feeding charts, googled countless hours for how much to feed ball pythons, read mainstream pet care guides just to take those into consideration (from big names like Petco and Petsmart) and have never heard of the 10-15% rule.

There are hundreds of posts on this site alone about prey size. Here are some things I've learned from this site about feeding from reading posts written by the herd:


Feed 20-40g (hopper - rat hopper) food until the snake is 500ish grams.

Feed 60 - 80g (small rat) food until the snake is 1000ish grams.

Feed 100-150g food indefinitely. That's the size of an adult african soft fur rat - one of the main prey items for BPs naturally. Those who feed above that are outliers.

If you do the math there, everything lands between 10 - 20% of the body weight and caps out around 120-150g. Those rats are also all about as thick as the snake of corresponding size.



Had you posted "how big should my snake's food be" you'd probably get 50% responses 'as big as the snake is thick' and 50% responses saying something similar to what I have said above with gram weights. You'd then get someone linking you this chart like they do in every one of the hundreds of threads on feeding because people are helpful here and know that the logical follow-up is 'I don't have a scale, how do I know how big a 60 - 80g rat is':




It's kind of hypocritical to preach about science and then not actually do your homework. Nobody with vast experience in ball pythons nor any website with 2 cents worth of knowledge would ever tell you to feed a jumbo rat to a BP.
You called everyone sheep and ranting about the herd and then posted a bunch of opinion as the new and improved scientific approach to feeding ball pythons. Measure those rats girth and associate it with the girth of the snakes you recommended. I bet they're about as big around as the snake. Take the weights and draw some percentages. I bet they're about 10 - 20%.

[GamerAgeDad]

There are hundreds of posts on this site alone about prey size. Here are some things I've learned from this site about feeding from reading posts written by the herd:


Feed 20-40g (hopper - rat hopper) food until the snake is 500ish grams.

Feed 60 - 80g (small rat) food until the snake is 1000ish grams.

Feed 100-150g food indefinitely. That's the size of an adult african soft fur rat - one of the main prey items for BPs naturally. Those who feed above that are outliers.

If you do the math there, everything lands between 10 - 20% of the body weight and caps out around 120-150g. Those rats are also all about as thick as the snake of corresponding size.



Had you posted "how big should my snake's food be" you'd probably get 50% responses 'as big as the snake is thick' and 50% responses saying something similar to what I have said above with gram weights. You'd then get someone linking you this chart like they do in every one of the hundreds of threads on feeding because people are helpful here and know that the logical follow-up is 'I don't have a scale, how do I know how big a 60 - 80g rat is':




It's kind of hypocritical to preach about science and then not actually do your homework. Nobody with vast experience in ball pythons nor any website with 2 cents worth of knowledge would ever tell you to feed a jumbo rat to a BP.
You called everyone sheep and ranting about the herd and then posted a bunch of opinion as the new and improved scientific approach to feeding ball pythons. Measure those rats girth and associate it with the girth of the snakes you recommended. I bet they're about as big around as the snake. Take the weights and draw some percentages. I bet they're about 10 - 20%.

What I am saying is people posting "You should feed about the girth, but no greater" is that it is not very helpful. This does not answer my questions about what kind of critters to buy for my snakes and how many critters I will need to feed them when they are X amount of time old. The chart your provided does not show what to feed snakes. The chart you posted is a chart I have seen before and it is for the growth of critters.

Again, maybe you missed it, but I put it in bold on my main post that this is not science and it does not have any evidence to it. I was quite clear about this so by no means am I preaching about science. The reason I pointed out that I am a scientist is to say it bugs me that no one has done any research on snake diets and what to feed. Thus I think what I have presented is a great start and I will be using it to feed my snakes.

[sorraia]

Not taking sides here (way too little experience) but "experience" must in some cases give way to scientific data. That's why we don't practice blood letting in human medicine, and realize that dinner shouldn't really be the biggest meal of the day.

Im not saying that y'all's experience is wrong, nor am I siding with the science guy. Just beware of using "experience" to counteract good science.

I am a scientist, a biologist to be precise. And I see a major flaw in the OP's chart:
OP is assuming all sizes and all developmental stages require the same nutritional intake.

This is in fact false. Nutritional requirements change as an animal grows and develops. This is true of all animals.

In a nut shell, and keeping it simple in terms of "calories" only (ignoring all other nutrients, though other nutrients are important too):
All living animals require a certain base level of calories to maintain basic bodily functions. These bodily functions include respiration, blood circulation, and digestion, and in the case of warm-blooded animals also includes calories required to produce heat (some of which occurs as a result of activity and basic bodily functions).

Growing animals have a higher caloric requirement. In order to sustain basic bodily functions as well as growth, more calories must be consumed. Therefore a growing animal must consume a greater number of calories proportional to its size than a full grown animal. This is where the OP's chart falls apart. The OP is assuming the same 10% of body weight in food is required by a hatchling as a full grown 2000+g adult. This is not true.

Females who are reproducing also have a higher caloric requirement, though not necessarily as high as a young growing animal. Females produce offspring, some of their calories are allotted to this creation of new bodies (whether those bodies be in the form of eggs or in the form of live young gestated inside the mother's body). In order to meet this caloric demand and still maintain her basic bodily functions, a female must consume a slightly higher calorie value than a non-reproducing female. Males are excluded from this and treated as "non-reproducing females" because the production of sperm takes considerably less energy than the production of eggs or young. (For mammals, caloric requirement remains high post-partem during the lactation period. Lactation requires more calories to maintain.)

So what does all of this mean?
This means, you can follow the "10% rule" (or rather, 10-15% that is generally recommended) as long as the animal is growing. However once growth slows or ceases, it will be necessary to pull back and feed less than 10-15% of the animal's body weight. How much exactly will depend on a few factors, such as the animal's overall size and reproductive status. In order to determine a hard number, there needs to be well planned and executed study. I don't know if any one has done this, but in a less-stringent format experienced hobbyists HAVE figured it out. That's where experience is important. Science and experience need not be opposites nor combatants, but can work together. The reason we no longer practice blood letting or make dinner the biggest meal of the day (actually some people still do) is not strictly because science has told us it doesn't work, but also because experience has told us it doesn't work. In fact, often the experience (Why isn't this working?) prompts the scientific study that tells us the why.

[GamerAgeDad]

I am a scientist, a biologist to be precise. And I see a major flaw in the OP's chart:
OP is assuming all sizes and all developmental stages require the same nutritional intake.

This is in fact false. Nutritional requirements change as an animal grows and develops. This is true of all animals.

In a nut shell, and keeping it simple in terms of "calories" only (ignoring all other nutrients, though other nutrients are important too):
All living animals require a certain base level of calories to maintain basic bodily functions. These bodily functions include respiration, blood circulation, and digestion, and in the case of warm-blooded animals also includes calories required to produce heat (some of which occurs as a result of activity and basic bodily functions).

Growing animals have a higher caloric requirement. In order to sustain basic bodily functions as well as growth, more calories must be consumed. Therefore a growing animal must consume a greater number of calories proportional to its size than a full grown animal. This is where the OP's chart falls apart. The OP is assuming the same 10% of body weight in food is required by a hatchling as a full grown 2000+g adult. This is not true.

Females who are reproducing also have a higher caloric requirement, though not necessarily as high as a young growing animal. Females produce offspring, some of their calories are allotted to this creation of new bodies (whether those bodies be in the form of eggs or in the form of live young gestated inside the mother's body). In order to meet this caloric demand and still maintain her basic bodily functions, a female must consume a slightly higher calorie value than a non-reproducing female. Males are excluded from this and treated as "non-reproducing females" because the production of sperm takes considerably less energy than the production of eggs or young. (For mammals, caloric requirement remains high post-partem during the lactation period. Lactation requires more calories to maintain.)

So what does all of this mean?
This means, you can follow the "10% rule" (or rather, 10-15% that is generally recommended) as long as the animal is growing. However once growth slows or ceases, it will be necessary to pull back and feed less than 10-15% of the animal's body weight. How much exactly will depend on a few factors, such as the animal's overall size and reproductive status. In order to determine a hard number, there needs to be well planned and executed study. I don't know if any one has done this, but in a less-stringent format experienced hobbyists HAVE figured it out. That's where experience is important. Science and experience need not be opposites nor combatants, but can work together. The reason we no longer practice blood letting or make dinner the biggest meal of the day (actually some people still do) is not strictly because science has told us it doesn't work, but also because experience has told us it doesn't work. In fact, often the experience (Why isn't this working?) prompts the scientific study that tells us the why.

I completely agree with you. My chart certainly does neglect the fact that some animals will grow at different rates than others. What my chart does look at is an average. No one can plan anything though not having any idea what size critters their snake will eat (and the standard deviation of a ball pythons weight is not extremely far from the average), so at least it is good to have a chart to know about what to buy for them. I did not make any points about females requiring more nutritional value as Dave Munson's chart does intentionally because this chart does not account for extenuating circumstances. It is merely meant to be a simple feeding chart because I could not find one better. Again I stress, if anyone knows of a better feeding chart with more information please provide it. That is the whole point of this discussion. Even the care sheet on these forums here still only lists the "feed your snake about it's girth, but no more than that" rule of thumb and says this issue is still up for debate. Well I am debating that what I have presented here is additional guidance to that rule of thumb and that it does help people that need to plan ahead for what they are going to feed. There are a lot of things to the growing process of ball pythons that don't make much sense to me. For example, I fed my female a 19 gram mouse the other week and when I weighed her this week she was over 25 grams larger. Where she is getting that extra weight from, I have no idea. Again though, I agree with everything you said and it is great input on the topic. Thank you for your contribution!

[RoyalHouseMorphs]

Surely if, when regarding larger animals, feeding under the 10-15% "guideline" people would start seeing problems with the animal from lack of nutrients? Becoming lethargic, eggs not being developed enough etc etc.

[Coleslaw007]

I think ball pythons are already pretty lethargic lol but I really don't think they would grow as large as they do if they were not being properly nourished. People grow tiny hatchlings into 4kg monsters on 1 small a week.