Burm or Retic??

[cstruthers]

No, remember, it's not stunting...it's managing...

"managing" a snakes growth rate sounds really fishy, how would you go about this? Once a month, twice a month feeding for a hatchling? More, less?

Why do you want to make the snake grow slower then it is natrually supposed too?

And even on NERD's site, he says you should feed a meal once a week and that if you are trying to maintain their growth it can leave with you an always searching for food snake, and that's not good if you want to handle the snake a lot..

Would you say "managing" your personal weight is healthy or unhealthy? I dont understand why you keep using that term negatively because the way I am using it is actually a possitive thing. Im saying that if you feed a retic a healthy amount (not too frequently and too large of prey items like most people do) they will generally (yes there are genetic exceptions) stay a decent size (males around 16-18ft max).

And you keep accusing me of wanting to starve my snake. I never made any meantion of this at all. The reason all of this "management" stuff came up is because Theartisticgemini said that males were 23+ feet. And yes I know this CAN happen, either from rare genetics or overfeeding, but it is by no means the "norm" for a male retic. It is usually not the "norm" for females either which are significantly larger. Look online a little bit and see how many 23+ft retics there are, you wont find many compared to how many smaller ones you find.

And I know I could buy a retic tomorrow and it could be a world record 50ft snake (highly unlikely) but I will be fine with that. But I am going to feed resonably and responsibly (this is what "managing" is) so that my retic will grow up to be a healthy and not fat retic.

If there is any further arguments about anything in this post then please re-read it and dont overthink it. Because I dont understand how anyone could argue with anything I have said in this last post. I am sorry I havent made everything totally clear throughout the post, I thought I had but I guess I was mistaken. If I need to clear anything else up please let me know. I am an extremely responsible keeper and am more concerned about animals than myself, so I would never do anything to cause one harm (underfeeding, overfeeding, mishandling etc.). Soon I will have my degree in Wildlife biology and then working on my masters in herpetology so this is more than just a hobby to me like it is with most people.

So please, hold no grudges and have an open mind when confronted with things that you dont fully understand and I will do the same. I just want everybody to be responsible when raising these large animals because many people do overfeed beacuse they want that 25+ft snake, which most of the time the animal is not genetically meant to get that big, so they are therefore unhealthy.

-Cody