Quote Originally Posted by Gio View Post
I tend to go conservative as well and by no means does that mean starving or underfeeding.

The retic game is interesting. Sauzo and I have similar animals from the same breeder and they may be distant relatives. Caesar is food driven, and my boy Wallace is less food driven. Both are NOT full mainland animals but they are still reaching a larger size than a pure SD.

My opinion is that almost ALL snakes in captivity are over fed.

That said you can't necessarily deny a retic that is pushing and destroying its face the opportunity to eat. The retic keeper needs to be prepared for the unexpected.

Cloud and I tend to work with the less is more approach, but I will admit my retic is becoming more food driven and has taken a growth spurt within the last few weeks. He's not 7 feet like Caesar, bit I'm thinking he is rapidly catching my 4 year old coastal carpet who is a bit over 7 feet.

Sauzo, JMcrook and I keep in touch fairly often and compare notes and that helps me a lot. If I hear Caesar is slowing in length and getting thicker I expect Wallace will be catching up in a month or so.

My personal opinion which is somewhat echoed by Nick Mutton and Vin Russo is the best feeding schedule is not a feeding schedule. Frequency and prey size can be mixed up. Long stretches followed by shorter and bigger prey followed by smaller. YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW YOUR ANIMAL!

Most intelligent, tuned in keepers know their animals well and if they are not motivated by breeding with hopes of financial gain, they will do right by their pets and try to keep them healthy by following a wild type feeding regime.

That may be a lot of blabber, but think "WILD snake" and what nature gave reptiles to succeed. You will learn what your animal needs.

Don't feed for fun, even though it is my favorite part of the hobby.

Be patient and smart and look at having your animal for over 20 years.

I take my hat off and totally respect keepers that have snakes that are thriving at 20 + years old.

Without a doubt they are feeding and keeping their animals the right way.

WOW,,, what a rant. I hope it made some sense.
With such high mainland percentages, I wouldn't be surprised if you two got some decent-sized retics. I have always been under the impression anything less than 70-75% SD blood (whichever is the more "correct" percentage) will result in normal-sized retics, or close to it.

Of course, don't hold back food on a retic destroying its face. haha If they will tolerate it, feeding less is always better, but having pushing retic is a lot worse.

I do sort of keep my snakes on a schedule, but I also don't stick to it religiously. I don't generally get upset if they're 1-3 weeks late, or even more for a big adult boa constrictor. Prey sizes will also vary in my growing snakes, as I will test to see if they're ready to move up to the next prey size. If the bulge is too large for my liking, I step them back down for awhile longer. Or if for whatever reason they seem to be packing on too much weight, or not enough, I will also adjust accordingly. As you say, keep your individual in mind.



Also Sauzo, definitely see about stepping up in rat size or the occasional GP, I think I started River on colossals around the 7.5' mark, so I'm sure he's close to needing a prey size increase.


I didn't think much about the weight, River came to me at 6 months and 350 grams, so I figured an SD wouldn't be too far off of that. :/ Though to be fair, at the time she was being severely underfed. Breeder said she was getting a mouse fuzzy​ every 2 weeks. >.>