Show me your biggest ball python!

[Sauzo]

I like to keep my snakes on the heavy side, mainly because I had one snake fast for eight months straight. Good thing she was on the heavy side because at the end of the fast she still looked good. I had one snake that was underweight and she fasted for a long time, scared the heck out of me, I was tempted to assist feed (although I didn't and wouldn't). I don't think the snakes above look overweight, they are just big! Plus I'm feeding to breed, if I were feeding a pet snake I would never feed that much.

There is no reason to keep a snake on the 'heavy side'. It's not healthy for them no matter how you look at it. Some breeders do it because they just want to get weight up and breed as fast as possible to stay ahead in the morph race. I'm not sure as i dont breed personally but i would think the age of the snake would play more of a factor in how well the breeding goes as they have more time to mature vs just being a fat baby that isnt mature enough internally to produce large healthy clutches.

And Dottie fasted for about 6 months last winter and she lost almost no weight at all. In fact, she pooped, shed and pissed during that fast which really surprised me lol. In the wild they could easily go 3 months without food and longer in the winters as they actually have to hunt and catch food vs sit in an optimally set cage and just lay there waiting for food to be served on tongs like clockwork every week or two. They basically need to expend no energy but just pack on food.

But they are your snakes but i am not a fan of power feeding simply to breed them. If i were to breed, i would only breed my females every other year to give them breaks and i would feed them normally. Rather have healthy snakes and less clutches/litters than to try and pump out as many babies as i could while risking my females. I know i would be crushed if i lost any of my females. As strange as it sounds, all my snakes are like my 'kids'.

I read a lot of stuff about how people say boas, BPs and other snakes arent active. I attribute it to overfeeding which i think 90% of people do. All of my snakes are fairly active at night and cruise around, climb on their shelves, shove their heads in between the litter dam and door lol, But i also only feed my adults like every 2-4 weeks, sometimes longer if its a boa that ate a rabbit.

Anyways /rant off and not really directing this at you CC, just using your post as an example lol. I've already ranted about this on the boa FB pages. About the only boa FB page i found with most of the guys feeding normally is Pure Locality Boa FB but it seems none of the hose guys really race to breed like you see with the morph market so often

[zina10]

There are some 4000 gr + BP's that look awesome weight/body shape to me, while I've seen some in the 3000 gr range that just look fat.

The "fat" snakes I've seen couldn't even wrap around an arm properly anymore. They just loosely coiled. They felt like fat sausages, squishy. They also had a weird body shape, almost the same width from high up behind the neck right up to the vent, with a small head compared to the huge body.

I had a 4500 gr rescue female once. But she was pure muscle. STRONG. Could coil tightly and still had a normal snake shape (not fat) she was just BIG. I believe she was simply a older snake that was allowed to reach that size over time, rather then in a hurry. She also had a proportionally big head.

The big male I have has continued to grow over the years, steadily putting on weight. I've had him for almost 8 years now and he is STILL growing. He, too, is very strong, can use his entire body to coil tight to hold on. No squishy-ness to him.

I've also had another "Normal" female that was 3400 gr. She, too, was "tight" , no fat, narrower tail region and big head. Here are some pictures of her..









My point is, even "pet" snakes (non breeders) can and will reach large sizes, even if fed at a more conservative rate (no power feeding) and given time to grow. The truly BIG (rather then fat) looking snakes I've seen were all 5+ years old or older then that.