"Power feeding" BG's perspective.

[Big Gunns]

The general rule of thumb is that you should not "power feed" your snake. Big Gunns is not so sure they don't "power feed" themselves in the wild. Everyone knows when babies come into the country every year..... a month or so after they come in the "bush babies"(wild caught babies from that year) start coming in. These babies are MONSTERS(2 to 300 grams) compared to the babies that came in before their first shed and have been raised in captivity for a month. Just to be clear.....They are obviously that years babies that have hatched in the wild and fed....and fed HEAVILY.


This also holds true for the Savannah Monitors. The ones that hatched in the wild and were caught after a couple months are HUGE compared to the ones that came in a newborns and have been raised in captivity.


Big Gunns point is this. "Power feeding" really needs to be defined. These animals seem to eat a lot more than even Big Gunns feeds them when he's feeding them very well....most people might consider it "power feeding". If they're doing it in the wild, Big Gunns is pretty sure that nature knows what it's doing, and they can handle a heavy feed schedule.

Now this doesn't mean you should slam every single thing your snake will eat down it's throat 24/7. All BG is pointing out is that they seem to eat a whole lot more than you would think they do in the wild. Big Gunns is sure that females are up to breeding size within 18 months in the wild.

ps. BG will say this though. He knows a certain breeder that thinks he may have killed his expensive Savannah Monitors by over feeding them, but with them, BG thinks they need more exercise than a snake would.

[marct]

Well BG... Marc agrees with you, and would really like someone to "define" power feeding. (Just wanted to see how much fun it would be to speak in the third person.)

[Big Gunns]

Well BG... Marc agrees with you, and would really like someone to "define" power feeding. (Just wanted to see how much fun it would be to speak in the third person.)

It's gonna be hard to "define". There's not many people qualified to "define" it, since most people have no clue how much wild animals eat.

You're loving that third person talk aren't yah?

[marct]

You're loving that third person talk aren't yah?

Marc thinks it is fun to speak this way.

About your topic, I grew up on a farm with many cotton mouth snakes. These animals were HUGE. I would always find them in our barn, and in the crawfish pond. I'm pretty sure they ate more than every 7 days.

[mainbutter]

Just because someone can find evidence that ball pythons in the wild will eat like crazy while young, in larger quantities than some people feed in captivity, does not mean that it promotes better health.

It certainly can be an evolutionary advantage to get to breeding size faster, even if it cuts down on the overal lifespan of the animal.

My viewpoint is that when it comes to keeping animals in captivity, I'm going to pay more attention to the experience of people's successes keeping them in captivity than the assumptions made about animals found in the wild.

[Big Gunns]

Just because someone can find evidence that ball pythons in the wild will eat like crazy while young, in larger quantities than some people feed in captivity, does not mean that it promotes better health.

It certainly can be an evolutionary advantage to get to breeding size faster, even if it cuts down on the overal lifespan of the animal.

My viewpoint is that when it comes to keeping animals in captivity, I'm going to pay more attention to the experience of people's successes keeping them in captivity than the assumptions made about animals found in the wild.

Guess what. Big Gunns falls into that category also. He has many many years "experience keeping them in captivity". He also knows one of the biggest(in BG's opinion) "power feeders" there is, and this person has yet to tell BG he has seen any problem with his animals that he fed every single day(small meals) until they were breeding size.

BG knows he has done this with hundreds of animals....so if it was a problem...he would know. It's only been the last 7 years or so....so maybe it might cause a long term problem...the facts are not in yet.


ps. Where did Big Gunns say anything about it "promoting better health"? BG is looking...maybe you can point him to where he said it.

[Big Gunns]

Big Gunns would like to point this out. BG is not saying that if you feed your snake 24/7 it will be fine. All BG is saying is that in his experience he hasn't seen anyone really have any problems with heavy feed schedules....although BG thinks there may be some effects later in life for the animals.


If an animals dies, who's to say it died from heavy feeding anyway. BG has had boas with cancer that were not fed heavy. It's kinda hard to prove what caused an animal to die.

To be safe though, BG thinks it's probably best for the animal not to feed it more than a couple times a week at most.

[rabernet]

It's interesting Neil - Tim Bailey and I have discussed this same thing in the past - about bush babies coming in much larger than the CH that were shipped even before their first sheds, and the fact that ball pythons are opportunistic feeders, and its in babies' best interests to eat as much as they can as quickly as they can to grow and become less of a chance of becoming prey themselves.

Wow - that's a run on sentence isn't it? LOL

As a result of those conversations, I do feed my babies every 4 to 5 days and feed them on that schedule until they start to consistently refuse on that schedule. Only then do I move them to about a once a week schedule. But if I see an older animal looking like they may be looking for food before 7 days, I do offer them food.

That's what I like about learning from others - it opens your mind to think outside the box.

There are certainly tried and true "guidelines" that we like to recommend to a new keeper, because we know that they work. But for someone who has some experience under their belt (and each person will have to define "experience" for themselves, I'm not going to), there's nothing wrong with thinking outside the box.

When I got my first ball python, I was very black and white with my "rules". Temps had to be X and humidity had to be X - no flexibility in that. Then I read VPI's book and Kevin McCurley's book, and talked to other breeders - and guess what? They all did things a little differently, and they all had healthy animals. Some kept their animals much cooler than I would have at the time, and others bred smaller than I would have, etc. It really made me stop and think and start to be more flexible in my thinking and start learning to read my animals. I stopped freaking out if the cool side of my enclosure dipped into the mid to upper 70's if there was still an appropriate basking spot available on the warm side. Did you know that the Barkers have a whole building of females that cool into the upper 60's in the winter? Learned that from reading their book. And I learned from my own experience that when the cool side of my enclosure dipped into the mid to upper 70's, nothing bad happened, no RI's, etc - as long as there was an appropriate basking area.

So - I like posts like this, that get people to think outside their comfort zone. There are many ways to successfully keep ball pythons. One way isn't necessarily THE way. I'll repeat what I said above, this forum does tend to offer a "set" way to keep ball pythons, which I think is fine for a new keeper - they need to get the basics down. Once the basics are mastered, there's no reason why they can't start to change things up and see what works best for them!

[Wh00h0069]

I have "power-fed" a ball python with no ill effects. The problem is that people have different meanings of power-feeding. I feed him a small meal every few days until he was about 500 grams. He stopped eating after this and did not eat for a few months. Eventually the ones that hatched out about the same time he did grew larger than him. He started eating again, and is doing fine now.

[Danounet]

Just to add, My little 3 month spider female arrived to me at 107g very healthy. Ofcourse with the shipping and the settling after that, there was a week or so that she didnt eat. I have been feeding her every 4 days mostly, sometimes 3. She ate without thinking about it twice, live. I've had her for a month now and she went from 107 to 200+ in less than a month. She is NOT fat at all, but much bigger now. She shed before being shipped to me, and now she just went into sheding now.