Quote Originally Posted by freedom21 View Post
I understand your concern BUT I have to disagree to a degree. This is a baby ball python I am talking about, which means he is growing at a fast pace and since he is growing it makes sense that he is eager to eat 3-5 days. When is comes to adult snakes then I can understand feeding once a week or once a month. I have a 3 year old pastel male who eats once a month since he isn't going through a growth spurt and is at a healthy weight. I have an older female (5-6 years) who is eating once a week. All of my snakes know when they want to eat and when they don't want to eat. My pastel male went 6 months without eating and then BOOM he was eating like a pig for a few months and now is eating contently at once a month.
In the wild no one REALLY knows how much they eat. If you think about it, tons of different food sources are available to them everyday and a growing baby needs to eat in order to grow. So to conclude, I think fast growing baby snakes should eat as often as want as long as they will take it eagerly. And adults don't need to eat as often because they are pretty much done growing.
That makes a bit more sense. I would be hesitant to suggest others start 3 day cycles without more information included as well though. i.e do you reduce prey size, what stage do you start lengthening the feeding cycle. etc.
I have heard pet store staff state explicitly that snakes cannot be over fed, my concern is for new keepers coming in and getting the idea that every 3 days and "normal" amounts is a good idea.
Thanks for clarifying that.
And, I will grant that at that stage of the life cycle they might possibly be more forgiving of the additional food.


And, yes I have a male that only takes 1 small every 2 weeks usually even though offered weekly and a female that hammers medium rats every week as if I hadn't fed her for a month(the rest are pretty much normal, 1 small a week not counting juveniles). There is a variation in individuals in the species. Personally, I have found 5-7(I do 5 on hatchlings 7 on larger juvies) days works for my juvenile BP's and hasn't ever been a problem. My boa on the other hand and, one of my carpets would eat daily if I let them