Powerfeeding

[MsPrada]

It looks to me that there is no 'set' definition of power-feeding. It looks to me like a lot of people consider it to be when you force feed an animal while it is in the process of swallowing another animal.


Anyhow, as a scientist I would very much be interesting in seeing some actual proof as to what the proven side-effects of powerfeeding are, if we take powerfeeding as feeding every 3 days or what not. It sounds to me that what a lot of people are thinking about as powerfeeding is really overfeeding. I believe there is a difference. Overfeeding will lead, most likely, to obesity and health problems caused by accumulation of adipose tissue and what not. Powerfeeding, if you just take the term power and feeding, sounds like you are feeding a snake so that in some way it gains 'power' in this case some extra weight for whatever reason. If you aren't starting with an obese snake to begin with, it seems to me that if you care about your animals (a lot more of us do than people seem to think apparently) then you will notice when it gets too fat, or when you need to slow down and regulate feeding. I see nothing wrong, and this is just my opinion, on "power" feeding. Stuffing an animals mouth with more food when it is swallowing sounds like "force" feeding to me and I only see that as an option if the animal is severely underweight and/or going to die.

If I felt that my girl needed some extra weight then I would feed her every 3 days. She will digest her food in that time and most likely be ready to eat again should she have kept a few of her instincts from the wild and the prey item make itself visible (in wild animal terms). Snakes are opportunistic and eat when they can, normally they arent kept on a schedule of every 10 days or every 5 days. They eat when they can. Now, I understand that these animals are not wild natural born animals and have changed since we have kept them as pets but I doubt seriously that they dont retain some form of wild animal thinking. There are only a few animals, like some fish, that I have read about that have been proven to eat until they will die just because food is offered, but I have yet to come across this in a snake report. I believe that if they do not want to eat, they will not eat. If the stimulus of being hungry is not there, they why would they want to eat? They arent people, they cant be bored and want some chips and get fat. They have much more basic instincts than that

That being said, my girl eats every 7 days, about 10% of her BW. Shes about 400 grams now and eats 2 20 gram adult mice. Two weeks from now I will be changing her to 50 gram weaned rats.