Growing slow, huh?

[Bluebonnet Herp]

I'm a bit confused. Jay of Prehistoric Pets has a video on his channel talking about a female mainland retic that bred for him, (and produced a decent clutch) although it's still a bit small and he states that it's comparable to that of a dwarf size. And sure enough, it looked to be a modest size. Of course it only reached sexual maturity at 5 years of age. But it was a mainland bloodline. Now that has me wondering, how does somebody go about achieving simialar results, and will they stay small in the long run or could they peak at 18+ feet in a few more years? And how small is small, anyway? How big will a modestly fed (male and female) retic max out at?

[Physician&Snakes]

I'm a bit confused. Jay of Prehistoric Pets has a video on his channel talking about a female mainland retic that bred for him, (and produced a decent clutch) although it's still a bit small and he states that it's comparable to that of a dwarf size. And sure enough, it looked to be a modest size. Of course it only reached sexual maturity at 5 years of age. But it was a mainland bloodline. Now that has me wondering, how does somebody go about achieving simialar results, and will they stay small in the long run or could they peak at 18+ feet in a few more years? And how small is small, anyway? How big will a modestly fed (male and female) retic max out at?

Growing slow is simply taking it easy on food, instead of doing the usual start a baby retic on rats every 6 days, you start them on mice every week...let them take a weaned instead of small rat every week when they are ~3-4ft, things like that. This seems to eventually hinder the size of mainlands; however, it is not as guaranteed as buying a specimen with actual dwarf blood. If you buy a mainland retic with no SD blood whatsoever you need to be ready for a 16-18ft animal at adult size even if the specimens ends up maxing out at 9ft. The females I have seen and read about seem to hang out in the 14-17ft mark but yes there are reports of 9ft mainlands successfully reproducing, I would like my my girls to be at least a good 12ft before I pair them personally; I have seen a ton of males max out just under 12ft, golden child and genetic stripe seem to stay on the smaller side and I was offered a proven 10ft male platinum earlier this year that was approaching 5 years of age.

[reptileexperts]

Many males max at 9' if fed slow and not heavy . . . many will breed within their first year if fed heavy, and then slow . . . many many breeders have done this with males . . .

Females are a different story - Jay . . . I dont want to shoot this topic up . . . but it's just not the case of how it is, but its more the thing that happened once. Jay probably had a bad feeder, so he fed it less, it grew slower because it was a runt, and then boom it hit maturity and bred . . . is this the case for sure? I have no idea, I saw the video, and while Jay produces (Actually that's Tim at his facility) uhmm some amazing retics, his logic in things about size references is all about marketting and he will do that to sell the person who cant afford a dwarf a mainland in hopes of it staying small.

Unless its a runt that was born under the average weight, this is a bad idea to try and "control feed" a retic. Dwarf and Superdwarf respond well to control feeding and this is what makes 2-3 year old males 3' long with superdwarf blood. They metabolize much much slower, the lumps stay in them a longer time in my experience. With mainlands its not the case. They willl take a giant meal and have it digested much much quicker and always be looking for more food.

Control feeding a mainland is a good way to initiate an SFE (Stupid feeding error) that will result in an accident from a hungry snake. If you want a smaller retic, get a dwraf / sd cross from someone who can back up the bloodline. If you want to try a controlled situation, get a ball python and try the same logic. . .

My two cents . . .

[jason_ladouceur]

Agreed^^^^
My experience with retics is all with mainlands. And from what I've personally observed they are just about always hungry, even with a reasonable heavy feeding schedule.
If you are not comfortable with having a giant then don't buy mainland retics.
If you don't have the space to house a snake that can potentially break the 20' mark, then don't buy mainland retics. I love the species and my favorites have always been lemon heads. But I don't have the space for one anymore. So I don't keep them anymore; plain and simple.