How often do you feed your Dumeril's?n

[SquamishSerpents]

Now that my female has been eating steadily I'm wondering if I should cut back her feedings. She was originally given to me as a "he" by a couple who could no longer care for her due to their landlord not wanting her in the place.

She was only eating live hamsters and gerbils :S Because that's all they could find. She would not take frozen. It took me about a year and a half and some of the most unique tricks in the trade for enticing her, but now she eats f/t no problem at all and never misses a meal. In fact she now KNOWS that her food is pre-dead and doesn't hardly ever bother to "kill" it. She just kinda slinks up to it and starts swallowing. Occasionally she will take it off the tongs, but mostly she just spends a whole lot of time sniffing and nosing it, and then my arm gets tired so I just lay it down on top of her hide for her.

But anyways, currently she eats a "Colossal" sized rat (600+g or so) every 21 days to a month, sometimes she will eat more frequently if I happen to thaw too many rats for the balls, but usually those are just little snacks for her. Even the Colossal rats don't seem to leave much of a lump in her at all.

Which is why I was going to try her on rabbits but I can't seem to find a reliable source.

I am just worried because you always hear about how boas get obese really easily! I probably handle her the most out of all my snakes, though "handling" for her is mostly her hanging out around my neck while I cruise the forums or whatever. She doesn't move all that much!

I guess I don't really have any good full-bodied shots of her currently so these will have to do. She is going blue now so once she's done with the shed I will let her out and take some photos of her whole body, weigh her, and measure how long she is!







And this one is from October last year, but I'm sure she has grown since then:


Anyways. Just wondering on feeding her, I don't want her to be overweight!

[Marissa@MKmorphs]

My dumeril's female is a yearling and she gets fed small rats every 14 days and if some of my baby ball pythons refuse she will get their leftovers as "treats". I think sticking with the colossal rats every 21 days should be fine for maintanance. It doesn't look as if she has much more growing to do!

[Trackstrong83]

Yah I've heard dumerils in particular have extra slow metabolisms, being strictly ground snakes. So the 21 day thing sounds good. Mine is eating a small rat very 7 days, she is almost 600grams. As she grows I'm going to increase the meal size and lengthen the feeding schedule. She still in that "awkward" stage where she's long and lanky she's putting some meat on her bones though.

[Evenstar]

I don't think I would switch to rabbits. Sounds like you have her on a reaaly good schedule. She looks to be in perfect condition!

[SquamishSerpents]

Thanks guys!

The reason I wanted to switch her to rabbits is because they contain less fat than rats. But she definitely seems to be doing well so I'll just stick with it.

And yes she was definitely lean and skinny when I got her but she has filled out lots now. Much better body condition.

[SquamishSerpents]

And slow metabolism, yes! I swear she only really poops every 2 months or so but when she does....I worry that it was my boyfriend who snuck in there! LOL

[SquamishSerpents]

Well David Bowie has shed and I just tried to weigh her but she is now too big for the scale! That puts her at over 5000g. She reads as 10.5 lbs on my home scale but I know that is not super accurate.

[yeroc1982]

I feed my guy 1 jumbo rat per month. He's over 5 feet, not sure what he weighs but he's big.

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[rocknhorse76]

My 4 y/o male is just over 5' and about 3700g, and he eats a jumbo (400g+) rat every 3 weeks or so.