Let's Discuss Dietary Requirements for Ball Pythons

[Eric Alan]

Ever thought that since temps and digestion go hand in hand that we are stimulating them to consume more by providing them 92 degree hot spots to lay on?

Sure I have - every time I look at an annual climate map of their home area. You mostly see average highs in the low-upper 80s and average lows in the mid-upper 70s depending on the time of year.

In a perfect world, would it be cool to have a thermostat and heat source that could replicate these daily temperature fluctuations? Of course. Would that be better for their long-term health than providing them with a consistent temperature gradient that captured this range on a daily basis? I'm not sure.

In recent time, I've become quite a bit less concerned with skipped meals from the standpoint of "because they ate, I am doing things right". These days a skipped meal upsets me more from the standpoint of "I should have known better" because I'm trying to become more observant of individual snake's feeding habits. Also, because I feed mostly frozen/thawed rats, a missed meal = money wasted. I've actually changed my feeding schedule (split into two days vs one), and in-tune feeding amount (there are no longer "leftovers" to feed to snakes who already ate on that day), to reflect this mindset.

[Skiploder]

So, my set up is unique in that I have a separate building for my reptiles. I also do not keep anything but varanids, heloderms, and colubrids these days. I sold off my boids years ago. Our tortoises are kept outside in pens.

The building is kept at roughly 73 to 75 degrees during the day. Everything I have basks, so they are given basking sites of some sort. The front of the building is about 35% window, so temps increase slightly during the day. During the summer I let temps drop uncontrolled at night and during the winter I control the drop.

Now, if I were to use the same building for ball pythons, I would experiment around to find an ambient temperature in the building that lowers to about 77 degrees at night and allows for a range of about 82 to 88 in the enclosures depending on the time of the day.

I would also not provide a hot spot, but a slightly - very slightly - warmer basking spot during the first few hours of the night to stimulate the elective behavior of finding some residual heat after the sun goes down.

I think that once dialed in, I could provide a natural cycle.

Anyway, enough of the circular talk. Bottom line is I think as a group, captive snakes are overfed because people don't bother to take the time to do any research on them. We take someone's word instead of perusing studies and literature on the subject. Eric, some of these studies are almost 40 years old...the information is out there, we just choose to ignore it.

The problem with that if you make a list of everyone on this forum today...you will find that in 4 years many of them are gone. Some go away because they don't enjoy the interaction, some because they eventually see no point in it, but a lot go away simply because people do not tend to stay with this hobby that long.

One of the reasons I stopped breeding reptiles is because I always included a right of first refusal agreement with my sales. I haven't gone back to crunch the numbers but I would guess that more than half of the animals were returned to me. The number one reason? Eventual disinterest.

In other words, a lot of the advice that is given out is by people who don't spend a lot of time in the hobby and who are just repeating what someone else who hasn't spent a lot of time in the hobby told them.

On another thread, a member talked about how her ball python died of fatty liver disease and how the vet observed how overfed these animals are. There's a good reason for this...it's a lifestyle disease that we force on these animals.

I would argue there is no one "right way" to feed your ball python. Ball pythons themselves in the wild follow their own caloric fulfillment habits based on their individual activities. I do feel that there is a "wrong way" and that is following a blanket pattern without questioning it.

[Kaorte]

I agree that many people advise feeding their snakes way more than what they actually need. I also agree that the strictness of the basking temps are not really as necessary as people make them seem. It is not as if your snake is going to die if its left at room temp for a few hours, or the hot spot isn't precisely 92.1459 or whatever people are getting told these days.

So what simple advice can we give new comers so they don't fall into the same habits? I usually recommend feeding hatchlings weekly until they get some size on them. Once they are nice and plump I don't think they need to continue eating on a 7 day schedule.

I think we still need to have some consistent recommendations for people new to the hobby so its easy for them to understand. A newbie isn't going to come to this thread and have any idea what to feed their snake from then on out. Heck even I don't know! lol

[Mike41793]

I kept my balls in glass tanks for years in my room without any issues. My room temps averaged mid to upper 70s year round, definitely a bit warmer in the summer. I fed my snakes once a month or every other month even sometimes. I never had a single issue. I had heat lamps. For the week after I fed them, I would run that for them for a few hours every nite after dinner. That's all they got and I had three of them. They didn't die. They were as healthy as all of mine now that I keep in a rack. Lol

[Mike41793]

Temp drops don't kill them either. I've had balls get into the upper 60s at nite for years and they never had any health issues either. They still had their hotspots at 86/87.

[Mike41793]

They're different than balls, totally different continent, but I read in a Carpet Python book that there's a population of carpets at an upper elevation somewhere in Australia where nite temps can drop as low as 36°F and the snakes do just fine.

If people are brainwashed to think that their snake needs to eat every week then when it doesn't, they get all worried. If the standards were updated to be more accurate, and balls only needed to be fed every 4-6 weeks, then people wouldn't be losing their minds when the snake doesn't eat. Lol

[200xth]

Temp drops don't kill them either. I've had balls get into the upper 60s at nite for years and they never had any health issues either. They still had their hotspots at 86/87.

Same. My hotspots are 87 or 88. I've had night temperature drops into the low 70s frequently, and a occasionally into the 60's. My average ambient temperature is only around 75 in the house, including the room the snakes are in.

They all keep going with no issues.

[200xth]

In recent time, I've become quite a bit less concerned with skipped meals from the standpoint of "because they ate, I am doing things right".

It used to annoy me when mine wouldn't eat. Some of them ate every single week, but some would eat 3 weeks in a row, take 2 weeks off, eat once, then two more weeks off, etc. It was frustrating me a bit.

Then I realized I was trying to force some of them to do something I wanted them to do, not something they needed or wanted.

So the ones who ate less consistently started getting fed less regularly. Once every two weeks. It took up to a month for them to get with the program, but once they got on track they started eating more consistently, just less often. Their health is fine, their growth is fine, and we're all happier.

I also feed smaller. Nothing gets larger than a 60g rat, most of the time they are in the 40g to 50g range. Once in a while if someone doesn't eat, one of the hungrier girls will pick up a second meal, but even then the total food for a meal never surpasses 100g (and that is only a couple of times a year).

I even started feeding multiple types of prey. Rats, mice, and chicks. Only a few of mine will eat all three so they get the most variety, but all of the others (except 1) will eat at least two types of food (rats & mice, rats & chicks, or chicks & mice), so they all get some variety. No idea if it actually improved anything for them, but they eat a varied diet in the wild, so they'll get it here while they're with me.

I never worry about skipped meals anymore. If they skip a few times, I start looking at changing their schedule, but otherwise the meal goes to a garbage collector, and the snake stays on it's schedule next time around.

[Samong]

I would also like to know where this idea of "fattening up" a female for breeding season comes from; I would think the key goal would just be good body condition and not breeding too often. I'd like to see how much fat a breeding wild female has vs domestic. This thread does make me feel better about the fact I feed my female (9 years and the only one out of growing) on a 3 to 5 week schedule, with a break from food for 2-3 months each winter. And she's gained weight over the years even though I'm not breeding her or feeding her to breed her.

[Lizardlicks]

I would also like to know where this idea of "fattening up" a female for breeding season comes from; I would think the key goal would just be good body condition and not breeding too often. I'd like to see how much fat a breeding wild female has vs domestic. This thread does make me feel better about the fact I feed my female (9 years and the only one out of growing) on a 3 to 5 week schedule, with a break from food for 2-3 months each winter. And she's gained weight over the years even though I'm not breeding her or feeding her to breed her.

I think the origin on this comes from a psychological stand point rather than an actual physical need, but the reason why big breeders do it gets left out or abridged, so small time breeders only get passed on "you need to fatten that female up!" as advice. Watched Brian Barczyk's recent youtube vid on breeding advice, and it would seem the reasoning is less "fatten them up" and more "make a readily available food supply to stimulate follicle growth and breeding desire." The logic here being that females, either by instinct, some bodily reaction, or other unknown factor will translate "good food supply" into "lots of resources available for my offspring, making this a good time to reproduce."