Perhaps they feed slightly larger food items every other week, and that way the snake gets the same calories. Ive seen sizable females that were fed every 3-4 weeks, kept at less than ideal temperatures, so the idea that if you don't feed once a week = sickly malnourished scrawny snakes is obviously wrong.
I've been told by very successful breeders that they also attempt breeding younger females and I do believe that the female will not take if it's not mature enough. Until someone produces a study with a LOT of data showing that smaller/younger females have some bad reaction to being bred young/small, it's all conjecture. Yes, a female loses weight when they lay eggs, but in my experience many smaller(although not generally THAT small in my own snakes of course) pythons lay fewer eggs. As they got older, they seem to lay more eggs in a clutch. That's not based on a study with lots of data btw, it's just what I seem to have observed so far with mine.
And referring to breeding(or attempting to induce breeding) in two snakes where one might be smaller than the "industry standard" being called 'rape' is ridiculous in so many ways that I'm not certain where to start. It's distasteful. A male snake can hardly force a female to breed with him, since it requires a bit of cooperation on her part too.
Just because a lot of the hobby believes in doing things one way, doesn't automatically mean that other ways are "wrong" or "dangerous". After all, at one point folks only kept BPs in fish tanks with bare aspen, little to no humidity and heat lamps and unregulated heat rocks. Just because most of the hobby kept them that way, was it right too?
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