Hey DelOriginally Posted by dr del
You are correct in your assumption
A prey item as wide as your ball can have the potential to be more than 10-15% of the weight of the snake. When adulthood is reached I'd definitely feed a prey item smaller than the girth, my frequency would be 2 to 3 weeks depending on sex and season. When my balls reach adulthood I'll be looking for slow steady weight gain, even if it is 20g a month. IMO, as long as the snake is putting on weight it is getting all the nutrition it needs to be fit and healthy. My females would get maybe 10-12 more meals a years than my males.
Naturally one has to look at the nutritional needs of males vs females and what season they are in. Females use a lot of energy to produce eggs and I would aim to get the female to the same breeding weight each season with perhaps 10% extra weight year on year. No pushing hard to get up to weight for my guys n gals.
Understand the above points are my untested thoughts on the matter, and are subject to change but only via my experience....
Over the past month or so I have come to realize that we may be overfeeding our balls. We have just started the overfeeding debate here in South Africa on a local forum and it should be interesting....
http://www.sareptiles.co.za/forum/vi...136236#p136236
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