Retic food-weight charts?

[CloudtheBoa]

I tend to go conservative as well and by no means does that mean starving or underfeeding.

The retic game is interesting. Sauzo and I have similar animals from the same breeder and they may be distant relatives. Caesar is food driven, and my boy Wallace is less food driven. Both are NOT full mainland animals but they are still reaching a larger size than a pure SD.

My opinion is that almost ALL snakes in captivity are over fed.

That said you can't necessarily deny a retic that is pushing and destroying its face the opportunity to eat. The retic keeper needs to be prepared for the unexpected.

Cloud and I tend to work with the less is more approach, but I will admit my retic is becoming more food driven and has taken a growth spurt within the last few weeks. He's not 7 feet like Caesar, bit I'm thinking he is rapidly catching my 4 year old coastal carpet who is a bit over 7 feet.

Sauzo, JMcrook and I keep in touch fairly often and compare notes and that helps me a lot. If I hear Caesar is slowing in length and getting thicker I expect Wallace will be catching up in a month or so.

My personal opinion which is somewhat echoed by Nick Mutton and Vin Russo is the best feeding schedule is not a feeding schedule. Frequency and prey size can be mixed up. Long stretches followed by shorter and bigger prey followed by smaller. YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW YOUR ANIMAL!

Most intelligent, tuned in keepers know their animals well and if they are not motivated by breeding with hopes of financial gain, they will do right by their pets and try to keep them healthy by following a wild type feeding regime.

That may be a lot of blabber, but think "WILD snake" and what nature gave reptiles to succeed. You will learn what your animal needs.

Don't feed for fun, even though it is my favorite part of the hobby.

Be patient and smart and look at having your animal for over 20 years.

I take my hat off and totally respect keepers that have snakes that are thriving at 20 + years old.

Without a doubt they are feeding and keeping their animals the right way.

WOW,,, what a rant. I hope it made some sense.

With such high mainland percentages, I wouldn't be surprised if you two got some decent-sized retics. I have always been under the impression anything less than 70-75% SD blood (whichever is the more "correct" percentage) will result in normal-sized retics, or close to it.

Of course, don't hold back food on a retic destroying its face. haha If they will tolerate it, feeding less is always better, but having pushing retic is a lot worse.

I do sort of keep my snakes on a schedule, but I also don't stick to it religiously. I don't generally get upset if they're 1-3 weeks late, or even more for a big adult boa constrictor. Prey sizes will also vary in my growing snakes, as I will test to see if they're ready to move up to the next prey size. If the bulge is too large for my liking, I step them back down for awhile longer. Or if for whatever reason they seem to be packing on too much weight, or not enough, I will also adjust accordingly. As you say, keep your individual in mind.



Also Sauzo, definitely see about stepping up in rat size or the occasional GP, I think I started River on colossals around the 7.5' mark, so I'm sure he's close to needing a prey size increase.


I didn't think much about the weight, River came to me at 6 months and 350 grams, so I figured an SD wouldn't be too far off of that. :/ Though to be fair, at the time she was being severely underfed. Breeder said she was getting a mouse fuzzy​ every 2 weeks. >.>

[Sauzo]

With such high mainland percentages, I wouldn't be surprised if you two got some decent-sized retics. I have always been under the impression anything less than 70-75% SD blood (whichever is the more "correct" percentage) will result in normal-sized retics, or close to it.

Of course, don't hold back food on a retic destroying its face. haha If they will tolerate it, feeding less is always better, but having pushing retic is a lot worse.

I do sort of keep my snakes on a schedule, but I also don't stick to it religiously. I don't generally get upset if they're 1-3 weeks late, or even more for a big adult boa constrictor. Prey sizes will also vary in my growing snakes, as I will test to see if they're ready to move up to the next prey size. If the bulge is too large for my liking, I step them back down for awhile longer. Or if for whatever reason they seem to be packing on too much weight, or not enough, I will also adjust accordingly. As you say, keep your individual in mind.



Also Sauzo, definitely see about stepping up in rat size or the occasional GP, I think I started River on colossals around the 7.5' mark, so I'm sure he's close to needing a prey size increase.


I didn't think much about the weight, River came to me at 6 months and 350 grams, so I figured an SD wouldn't be too far off of that. :/ Though to be fair, at the time she was being severely underfed. Breeder said she was getting a mouse fuzzy​ every 2 weeks. >.>

Yeah, i tried holding back just to see what the limit was and yeah, it didnt go as planned lol. Not doing that again but at least now i know what Caesar's limit is haha.

I've been checking weights and stuff to compare guinea pigs to rats. Caesar's rats are jumbos which seem to average about 300g so I'm going to shoot for someting that weighs a smidge more and see how he handles it as i imagine GPs are more 'meaty'. I was also told to try small rabbits as we all know they are much more meaty and should allow me to stretch his feeding out.

I was told since he eats jumbo rats with ease and they leave a noticeable lump but nothing substantial, to try either an XL or 2XL guinea pig for Caesar.

And yeah, i figured Caesar wasnt going to be tiny as an adult. I figured about 10'. I just didnt want a 16' or 18' snake. And honestly i dont mind if Caesar gets a little bigger as his personality is really laid back and he is really easy to deal with. I just boop his head with a twisted paper towel and he lays down right where he is and doesnt move. It's like he's trained lol. I would rather have to deal with him being a little bigger but happy than smaller and miserable from having food withheld. Of course i also dont want him to become a giant sausage with a head lol.

I just hope I don't have to upsize his cage to an 8x3 as Ali told me that size is more of a challenge to move alone. The 6x3 were fairly easy to move by myself. The only plus if I do need to upsize is that I'll have a 6x3 ready for Gina lol.

[bcr229]

I have always been under the impression anything less than 70-75% SD blood (whichever is the more "correct" percentage) will result in normal-sized retics, or close to it.

Nope. I have two 50% SD 100% het purple sisters, and a mainland platinum female, all 2014's. The two SD's are about 9' long and their growth has slowed up noticeably over the last few months, the mainland has topped 12 feet and she's still putting on length (her dam is 20 feet). I don't expect the 50% SD girls to ever get over 10 feet.

One day when we get decent weather I should get all three out for a photo shoot.

[BallBuster7653]

I was thinking the same thing, don't you mean 350 gram hatchling? For a retic I would feed 10% of their body weight once a week at minimum, so that would be 35 grams. Take a look at the website at Rodent Pro, that's about the size of a large adult mouse. Hard to believe any retic would still be on mice after a year, even for an SD.

https://secure.rodentpro.com/catalog...el=frozen_mice

my 150 g retic eats small rats 10-14 days...35 granms a week is not ok! it should be eating 1/3 bi weekly so about 120 g ....medium rat bi weekly.....go to 1/4 when you git large rats 5-6 ft...rabbits 7-8 ft go to 1/5 bi weekly or double that for monthly.....8-10 ft 1/7.5 bi eekl;y....adult 12-14 ft...10 percent bi wweekly o 20 percent monthly......can feed less or more despending on weight..thats for a male retic...females would hav longer intervals between amount of food hanging