Quote Originally Posted by sflanick View Post
I guess I'm the only one who doesn't put my snakes on a feeding schedule I have learned that keeping the days " random" actually promotes a lean muscular snake. Also I believe the animal rushes the food through the digestive system so to prepare for the next meal so does not absorb everything he needs from the meal which in turn grows slower and in some cases fatter. So I believe that if you keep it somewhat random the snake will digest more of the food and get everything it needs from it. For the record random is 5 to 14 days
Not sure what you're basing that on, but it's physiologically incorrect. Scheduled feeding isn't going to cause obesity or slower growth. If anything, it's going to do the exact opposite. It works exactly the same in snakes that it does in nearly every other animal. The simplest way to explain it is that if you regularly feed a snake (pig, horse, dog, cat, human) and you keep the portion size (or prey item size) the same, its body and body chemistry will adapt to that routine. Mother nature is very good at extracting the nutrients an animal needs from its food. An animal rushing food through the digestive system to prepare for the next meal is not physically possible.

By introducing such a wide variation in feeding times, what you're actually doing is creating a huge variation in blood sugar, and a corresponding fluctuation in insulin levels. Unstable insulin levels will cause an animal to store carbohydrates (in omnivores) as fat. In carnivores, it's primarily proteins that are stored. Unfortunately, fat has no demands on the body. Muscles require oxygen and nourishment in order to function, where fat doesn't require either. Consequently, muscle tissue is catabolized. If you're getting a "leaner" snake using your method, I'm 99.9% sure you're actually underfeeding. If you track the number of days between feedings and average it out, I think you'll see that you're feeding less often than is really healthy.


-Ryan-