New ball python over a year old and only 166 grams!

[JodanOrNoDan]

I feed my non-breeding adult females every two weeks, and my non-breeding adult males every three weeks. This basically matches the schedule that they put themselves on when every snake used to be offered a rat weekly. After reading about FLD I decided that I wasn't doing them any favors by overfeeding, and the vast majority of snakes are overfed in captivity anyway. Some people would call this "maintenance feeding" since the snakes aren't really growing at a fast rate any more.

FWIW to get back to the breeders I know of with the tiny babies, "maintenance feeding" meant "just enough to keep them alive". It's done strictly to save money, not to prevent health issues due to overfeeding.

This pretty much hits the nail on the head. It saves money, space and time. It saves money up until something gets sick. I don't know this for a fact but I would bet that the sick animals get culled because it is cheaper to cull them than to treat them.

I bet these animals are kept in dark tubs as well so the breeder cannot see them. Many of my young babies go ballistic if I skip a week. Especially the spiders. There is no way you could look at that and not feed if you have an ounce of humanity left.

The most entertaining excuse I have heard for not feeding was "I cannot get enough rats to feed as often as I want to." This is an actual excuse from a very well known breeder. Maybe, just maybe, if that is true, the breeder needs to rethink his/her operation.