BP's eat and grow more than we thought?

[Scirlygirl]

So I had posted a topic on how big ball pythons get their first year and a couple of you mentioned yours getting 1000-1900 grams their first year. So this brings me to another thought:

As my response in my previous post, my black pastel eats 3-5 days and weighs 220 grams at 3 months old. He is eating every 3-5 days on large to extra large mice. Now, from observation, he probably could eat everyday to every other day just because thats how aggressively hungry he is. Best eater I ever had. Here's the thing, since no one knows really how much snakes eat in the wild, let alone BP's, how do we know we are feeding our snakes enough? wouldn't it make sense they need to grow fast in order to survive in the wild? Maybe reaching 1000+ grams is actually normal for their first year? I know BP's eat as much as they want so if mine accepts mice every 3 days, maybe thats actually not "unhealthy"? Now, when it comes to power feeding (forcing another rat/mouse in its mouth) does not count as this is NOT the way of nature and is horribly dangerous (I don't agree with it). But feeding them as often as they want is not to be mistaken with power feeding because they snake knows how much they need in order to grow. Just some thoughts, let me now what you guys think!

[Flikky]

In the wild they would have to spend a lot of time hunting. We in captivity most likely overfeed them quite a bit. They expend little to no energy hunting in their tubs and have food plopped in front of them. I personally would not feed more than every 5 days. I'm always afraid the snake will stop eating at any point and would rather them be hungry sometimes than full all of the time and that somehow lead to them refusing.

[STjepkes]

In the wild they would have to spend a lot of time hunting. We in captivity most likely overfeed them quite a bit. They expend little to no energy hunting in their tubs and have food plopped in front of them. I personally would not feed more than every 5 days. I'm always afraid the snake will stop eating at any point and would rather them be hungry sometimes than full all of the time and that somehow lead to them refusing.

I would definitely feed every 3 or 4 days as long as the snake is interested. I completely disagree with Flikky and firmly believe you can not over feed ball pythons, so long as they are voluntarily taking food. My snakes get up and moving quite a bit in the late evening, also. When they are hungry they definitely go "hunting" around the tub, sometimes looking for food for hours. And yes, I feel I can tell when they are acting hungry.

[Shera]

I have been thinking about this a bit myself. I have a 4.5 month old (~450g) pewter who is RAVENOUS at 3 days! She tears her enclosure apart like a drama queen having a fit LOL. I have been feeding her twice a week, so every 3 days, then 4 days, then 3 days etc. but when she has to wait 4 days she is out in full hunting mode the night before (making a huge mess), and will even strike the side of the enclosure if I get too close. Most people wouldn't feed a BP at that age and size every 3 days, but she clearly wants to be fed. I usually feed weaned rats (~40g), but this time she got a small (~60g). I'm hoping that will hold her a little longer LOL.

[Scirlygirl]

Happy I have a couple people who agree, Thanks for the comments guys!
STjepkes, thats what I was thinking, obviously they won't over eat and kill themselves lol.
Shera, I'm so happy I am not the only one experiencing this with my baby! My 3 month old Black pastel who is at 226g and is also aggressively hungry after 3 days. Never hesitant to strike at the first opportunity. He is taking large-XL mice with no problem. I'm surprised mine isn't bigger at the amount he has been eating haha.

[Garnet]

Well, OK, now I can make my confession. We were underfeeding him due to a misunderstanding on my part of what the breeder told me. She had him on rats already when I bought him. I didn't understand that and was feeding him mice which were way undersized. I was also feeding him once every 7 days. As I learned more, about feeding, I started feeding him multiple mice then switched to larger rats. He's now eating one rat pup. Now here's the confession part. I don't feed him according to a schedule. I feed him according to his behavior. When he goes into hunting mode, he gets a rat the next day. Doing it this way, we end up feeding him every 3 or 4 days. There are exceptions. We had one refusal and then he didn't "hunt" again for a while after that so it was 8 days between meals with that incident. Right now, he's in deep blue and hasn't come out of his hide since his last feeding except to get a long drink of water every afternoon. It's been 7 days since he ate last so we're going to offer him a rat this evening when he emerges for his drink.

But for the most part, we're letting him tell us when he's hungry. Since we've been doing that, he's been gaining weight and length. He didn't shed from September, when we got him, until November. I think that's because we were underfeeding him. He's right now in the throes of his second shed. I think this is more normal too than when we were underfeeding the poor little guy.

[Raven01]

I have been thinking about this a bit myself. I have a 4.5 month old (~450g) pewter who is RAVENOUS at 3 days! She tears her enclosure apart like a drama queen having a fit LOL. I have been feeding her twice a week, so every 3 days, then 4 days, then 3 days etc. but when she has to wait 4 days she is out in full hunting mode the night before (making a huge mess), and will even strike the side of the enclosure if I get too close. Most people wouldn't feed a BP at that age and size every 3 days, but she clearly wants to be fed. I usually feed weaned rats (~40g), but this time she got a small (~60g). I'm hoping that will hold her a little longer LOL.

450 gram snake means 45-67.5 gram prey is the ballpark to shoot for for you. The small you have fits in nicely to that range(in a pinch 2 smaller items of the same approx total weight is good too). The increase in size will most likely be appreciated by your snake.
Good luck.
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And, with all due respect anyone telling people to overfeed snakes is just plain wrong. If you feed smaller meals every 3 days sure, you can do it but, why would you?
More small prey items and more frequent feedings will just cost you more in the long run. It doesn't seem to provide any benefit to the animals and, it is easier to over-feed and end up with an obese animal.

There is no such thing as being healthy and overweight for people so, it wouldn't be wise to assume it is any different with other species without scientific evidence to back it up. I do know that some species of snakes develop liver issues if overfed.
Trying different things is all well and good but, power-feeding has been tried and there are reasons why it is not recommended. If you don't mind spending more to get your snakes the same nutrition and spend way more time feeding them(what may have to be prey that is in reality too small for the animal to adequately stretch ligaments and help with proper skull/jaw/soft-tissue development), I suppose you could. You just won't be doing yourself or your snake any favours.

[Raven01]

Happy I have a couple people who agree, Thanks for the comments guys!
STjepkes, thats what I was thinking, obviously they won't over eat and kill themselves lol.
Shera, I'm so happy I am not the only one experiencing this with my baby! My 3 month old Black pastel who is at 226g and is also aggressively hungry after 3 days. Never hesitant to strike at the first opportunity. He is taking large-XL mice with no problem. I'm surprised mine isn't bigger at the amount he has been eating haha.

Ya they will.
Just like a person eating McDonalds every day will considerably shorten their life-span.
There is a reason captive animal usually live much longer than wild counterparts that does not include predation. We as sentient beings with the tools to study these animals can give them an overall healthier life than they would have in the wild. Things like elimination of parasites, proper nutrition, all the things that go into good husbandry.
There are things we have to do that never happen in the wild. There is no one spot cleaning, changing substrate or filtering and purifying their water.

This is not a new or novel species where we need to try everything and figure out what works. If you are feeding the right size prey every 3 days for the size of snake you have for an extended period you will have a fat snake.

[STjepkes]

And, with all due respect anyone telling people to overfeed snakes is just plain wrong. If you feed smaller meals every 3 days sure, you can do it but, why would you?
More small prey items and more frequent feedings will just cost you more in the long run. It doesn't seem to provide any benefit to the animals and, it is easier to over-feed and end up with an obese animal.

There is no such thing as being healthy and overweight for people so, it wouldn't be wise to assume it is any different with other species without scientific evidence to back it up. I do know that some species of snakes develop liver issues if overfed.
Trying different things is all well and good but, power-feeding has been tried and there are reasons why it is not recommended. If you don't mind spending more to get your snakes the same nutrition and spend way more time feeding them(what may have to be prey that is in reality too small for the animal to adequately stretch ligaments and help with proper skull/jaw/soft-tissue development), I suppose you could. You just won't be doing yourself or your snake any favours.

Are you directing this at me? Because if you are you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Seriously, feeding them smaller items more often will literally allow your snake to grow to a healthy size more quickly. No, not just heavy, but literally longer, much faster. Power feeding is force feeding another animal, by putting into their mouth right as the first item is going down. NEVER did I condone doing this, so pay a little more attention to what you're accusing me of here.

I'm sorry that it sound like feeding is some big hassle to you, but that doesn't make feeding frequently wrong. If you think you can over feed ball pythons, I can be almost certain that you aren't speaking from experience, because this does not happen. I have never heard of a ball that voluntarily ate its way to a weigh that was impairing it's health in any way.

What I HAVE seen, many times now, is new people regurgitating information that they do not know to be fact at all, but they preach as law. I have also seen these people greatly underutilized the natural growing capacity of their young balls. If you're intending to breed, and talking about costs, having to wait at least 3-5 years when they have the potential to be there in 1.5-3 years is going to cost you a lot more money that just getting your snakes up to weight in the first place by offering them optimal food from the start. Obviously there are exceptions, though.

[Scirlygirl]

Ya they will.
Just like a person eating McDonalds every day will considerably shorten their life-span.
There is a reason captive animal usually live much longer than wild counterparts that does not include predation. We as sentient beings with the tools to study these animals can give them an overall healthier life than they would have in the wild. Things like elimination of parasites, proper nutrition, all the things that go into good husbandry.
There are things we have to do that never happen in the wild. There is no one spot cleaning, changing substrate or filtering and purifying their water.

This is not a new or novel species where we need to try everything and figure out what works. If you are feeding the right size prey every 3 days for the size of snake you have for an extended period you will have a fat snake.

I understand your concern BUT I have to disagree to a degree. This is a baby ball python I am talking about, which means he is growing at a fast pace and since he is growing it makes sense that he is eager to eat 3-5 days. When is comes to adult snakes then I can understand feeding once a week or once a month. I have a 3 year old pastel male who eats once a month since he isn't going through a growth spurt and is at a healthy weight. I have an older female (5-6 years) who is eating once a week. All of my snakes know when they want to eat and when they don't want to eat. My pastel male went 6 months without eating and then BOOM he was eating like a pig for a few months and now is eating contently at once a month.
In the wild no one REALLY knows how much they eat. If you think about it, tons of different food sources are available to them everyday and a growing baby needs to eat in order to grow. So to conclude, I think fast growing baby snakes should eat as often as want as long as they will take it eagerly. And adults don't need to eat as often because they are pretty much done growing.