I have a 13 year old bp and have always let him dictate his own feeding schedule. I purchased him as a baby from a pet shop when I was 11. For the first year or 2 he put himself on a weekly or bi-weekly feeding schedule for the most part, just depended on his mood. But after that point he tapered down to eating maybe once every 3-4 weeks instead. And once in a while he'll get on a kick and want something every week for a month.
He has always kept a nice body mass, never looking too skinny or fat, and he basically just comes out of hiding and will stretch himself up the walls of his cage and move around a lot to let me know he's ready to eat. Sometimes when he would try to go longer than 4 weeks I'd try to feed him anyways and it almost always resulted in having to toss his food in the trash. If he wasn't hungry he wouldn't come out and eat. But considering he's lived as long as he has and not once has he had any health problems I'd have to say sporadic feeding doesn't seem to be detrimental. And luckily with him I think if I would have tried to force a weekly feeding schedule I probably would have ended up with a lot more rats going in the trash than in his stomach.
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