Feeding schedules

[mechliam]

Its very easy to get caught up in how much and how often you need to feed your snake and everybody has their own opinions on what is the right way. My opinion is that there is no 'Right Way' as many schedules work fine. The key is simply to ensure that your snake is maintaining a healthy body weight.

I generally feed a male every 10-14 days with meals being on the smaller size.
I feed females every 7 days or so and larger meals, especially if they have laid the previous season to get their weight back up.

I dont follow any schedule and feeds will fluctualte slightly.
Remember, in the wild these snakes will eat when the opportunity arises and they wont be given the exact same meal size everytime so this isn't critical in captivity either.

As long as your snake is maintaining a healthy weight and doing what they should, I wouldn't change something that works.
Hope this helps put your mind at ease.

[EL-Ziggy]

Does the theory that male BPs need less food apply exclusively to breeder animals and not pets? I don’t breed snakes, but when it comes to pets, I don’t think feeding a medium rat every 2 weeks would be an issue for any adult BP (male or female). They can definitely survive on small rats but I’d hardly consider a medium rat every fortnight over feeding. I take a more liberal, generous, approach to feeding my snakes. They get small, medium, large, and occasionally XL sized meals. As long as they have the proper heat and time to digest their meals, and they get a bit of exercise, they should grow into big, healthy, and strong animals.

[Hugsplox]

Does the theory that male BPs need less food apply exclusively to breeder animals and not pets? I don’t breed snakes, but when it comes to pets, I don’t think feeding a medium rat every 2 weeks would be an issue for any adult BP (male or female). They can definitely survive on small rats but I’d hardly consider a medium rat every fortnight over feeding. I take a more liberal, generous, approach to feeding my snakes. They get small, medium, large, and occasionally XL sized meals. As long as they have the proper heat and time to digest their meals, and they get a bit of exercise, they should grow into big, healthy, and strong animals.

I think some of the confusion when we talk rat size comes down to everywhere labelling them differently. I've mentioned a few times having a local mice/rat breeder that I get my feeders from and what they consider a medium is closer in size to a small if you compare it to some of the frozen feeder websites. I don't want to say all the confusion comes from that, but really there's so much variance in what they're labelled as that I can see how people might get confused.

Regardless I agree, I've fed my guys larger meals, not too large but larger than I typically feed, if/when my vendor is out of my preferred sizes. I just alter their feeding schedule if they get something bigger than usual, maybe let an extra week go before feeding again. Never seen an issue and everyone has maintained what I would consider healthy weights and body sizes.

[bogie]

I have a 5ft BP that has always been a finicky eater and frozen/thawed was iffy at best. I have fed her live rats for the last 5yrs but recently tried her on mice. She lets me know when she is hungry by sticking her head out of here hide and getting close to the front doors. However I have to question the need for a "schedule" for feeding. If your reptile is hunting they its hungry. If its staying in its hide its probably not. Remember, these are VERY simple animals and basically its eat, hide and digest, eat again if prey comes by. I suppose if you have a room full of reptiles then a schedule would be necessary to keep track so nobody gets left out. I found out recently that she much prefers mice to rats even the South African Rat. She is a little piggy with mice and will often eat 2 in the same day. There is no stalking with the mice, they are hit within 30 seconds at most. Rats she seemed much more cautious of and took quite a while to take one. I got a dozen adult mice last week and she has taken 5 already. Then again she might stop eating for months. If she is hungry she will eat.