Power feeding?

[PhillyBoyInTN]

Here's my take...... powerfeeding to me is when a snake is eating you put another prey item in its mouth right behind it so it swallows both. If I have a young snake that eats and 3 or 4 days later is cruising for food, I will feed it. Folks, these snakes have been at this a lot longer then we have. They know more about them then we do. Pay attention to your snakes.

P.S.: This is my take on the subject and I'm not looking to get into a peeing contest with any book quoters

[bearhart]

Here's my take...... powerfeeding to me is when a snake is eating you put another prey item in its mouth right behind it so it swallows both. If I have a young snake that eats and 3 or 4 days later is cruising for food, I will feed it. Folks, these snakes have been at this a lot longer then we have. They know more about them then we do. Pay attention to your snakes.

P.S.: This is my take on the subject and I'm not looking to get into a peeing contest with any book quoters

One thing you might find interesting: I've mentioned this exact hunger test on here before. Very many people pointed out that "cruising" for food is not necessarily an air-tight way of gauging food need. Since then, I have found that there are definitely snakes that will actively over-eat if you let them.

Not trying to start a peeing contest :-) Just sharing a past experience. But, without getting into aforementioned contest, I would add that the "in the wild" type of logic needs to be applied carefully. This is because our snakes are not in the wild. Take people for example. Given bountiful amounts of food for (practically) free, a large percentage will willingly eat until they become obese. Some house cats will do so as well. Also, it is well established that widespread obesity is a consequence of modern society (i.e. not a factor with "wild" people). What's the difference? Well, I think its exercise. Its my personal opinion that the effects of caging are not well understood. BP's may spend most of their time in holes in the wild but I'm quite sure that nobody's dropping rodents in for them. They have to *work* to eat. If they want to eat more - they have to work more. And, if they are real pigs, they may have a hard time finding rodents at all for a while!

Now - a question for the early posters:

Isn't it true that the adverse affects of over-feeding take years to manifest? I've seen on other forums guys say that they had BP's die at 7 from over-feeding in the first two years of their life.

I'm not accusing anybody of lying or anything - I'm just curious if the claims of whether or not there are ill effects take this sort of timespan into account.

[LadyOhh]

Here is a photo of as close as I could get to the idea of Obese:

"Excess skin between scales is a good way of knowing if your bp is obese."

Hopefully you can see what the photo is trying to portray.





By the way, this female is not obese.. She is just getting ready to give me a huge "present" soon.

[syearout]

I have a few young males that I give a rat pup to as often as they want one. I keep a close eye on them, and if they were to get to the point that I thought they were "obese", I would back off, but as long as they are processing it and growing, I'm gonna feed them as much as they want to eat.

[Crazy4Herps]

I am no nutritionist, but I am educated.

I say no; powerfeeding often leads to obesity which leads to early death.m Plus, it's not natural. In the wild, BPs often can't find food for many weeks. They are built to eat every week or two, and as with any animal, changing its natural build-up never ends well.

Just my opinion.

[blackcrystal22]

I have a few young males that I give a rat pup to as often as they want one. I keep a close eye on them, and if they were to get to the point that I thought they were "obese", I would back off, but as long as they are processing it and growing, I'm gonna feed them as much as they want to eat.

If you offered them a rat pup every day, some may take it every day as a natural feeding response.
Does that mean it's healthy or responsible of the keeper? No.
A snake doesn't 'want' to eat. They eat to live, and have that natural instinct.

It has been studied that it's stressful on the heart of a snake to feed it more than twice a week. Honestly, that alone, is enough for me to not do it just because of selfishness on a humans part to want to breed it earlier.

It's not fair to the animal.
Same reason why some dogs can eat themselves to death and not realize it.

[Lunawf]

Ok, i know that this is probably a myth, but if you power feed a BP can it get as large as say a boa? or if you just feed them more then once a week for young and more then say 10 to 15 days for an adult can they get bigger then the normal 4 to 6 feet?

[Spaniard]

The genetics of the snake would determine how large and the rate at which it will grow. Once you reach the snake's limit on the amount of food that it can metabolize, that is when you start to see obese snakes.

[JenH]

Ok, i know that this is probably a myth, but if you power feed a BP can it get as large as say a boa? or if you just feed them more then once a week for young and more then say 10 to 15 days for an adult can they get bigger then the normal 4 to 6 feet?

I would say that is a myth. I offer food to my babies every 4-5 days, adult girls every 5-7 and adult males every 7-10. Some eat every meal, some don't. They are all pretty normal sized....

[Aeries]

Anyone have any photo examples of pinheads?