BP's eat and grow more than we thought?

[Raven01]

I understand your concern BUT I have to disagree to a degree. This is a baby ball python I am talking about, which means he is growing at a fast pace and since he is growing it makes sense that he is eager to eat 3-5 days. When is comes to adult snakes then I can understand feeding once a week or once a month. I have a 3 year old pastel male who eats once a month since he isn't going through a growth spurt and is at a healthy weight. I have an older female (5-6 years) who is eating once a week. All of my snakes know when they want to eat and when they don't want to eat. My pastel male went 6 months without eating and then BOOM he was eating like a pig for a few months and now is eating contently at once a month.
In the wild no one REALLY knows how much they eat. If you think about it, tons of different food sources are available to them everyday and a growing baby needs to eat in order to grow. So to conclude, I think fast growing baby snakes should eat as often as want as long as they will take it eagerly. And adults don't need to eat as often because they are pretty much done growing.

That makes a bit more sense. I would be hesitant to suggest others start 3 day cycles without more information included as well though. i.e do you reduce prey size, what stage do you start lengthening the feeding cycle. etc.
I have heard pet store staff state explicitly that snakes cannot be over fed, my concern is for new keepers coming in and getting the idea that every 3 days and "normal" amounts is a good idea.
Thanks for clarifying that.
And, I will grant that at that stage of the life cycle they might possibly be more forgiving of the additional food.


And, yes I have a male that only takes 1 small every 2 weeks usually even though offered weekly and a female that hammers medium rats every week as if I hadn't fed her for a month(the rest are pretty much normal, 1 small a week not counting juveniles). There is a variation in individuals in the species. Personally, I have found 5-7(I do 5 on hatchlings 7 on larger juvies) days works for my juvenile BP's and hasn't ever been a problem. My boa on the other hand and, one of my carpets would eat daily if I let them

[Expensive hobby]

I'm no expert but virtually all animals are capable of eating their way into unhealthy obesity. Yes it is true that many snakes contain an enzyme that actually keeps them from getting heart disease due to the slow metabolism and sedentary lifestyles; snakes can still suffer from liver/kidney problems due to an excess of fats obtained from prey items.

Telling people that snakes will not eat to the point of excess, as if it is empirical truth is simply incorrect.

Snakes are not a new concept in the pet/commercial breeding trade, nor is the information on what is an acceptable diet. Feeding a snake daily is not a healthy approach. Are you aware that snakes have a gastrointestinal fauna that allows them to break down prey items? And that if this biological bacteria is taxed too greatly(feeding too frequently) that their systems will become far less efficient at nutrient uptake? Even to the point of malnourishment regardless of prey items consumed? Ever heard that when a snake regurges that it should be given a week before feeding again? That is to allow time for the bacteria/enzymes in the GI tract to reestablish and become capable of digestion.

Please do, when debating idea like this, come from a stance of curiosity, and not stating empirical fact. Some new people might read this thread and think they should feed their beeper everyday, and wonder why it mysteriously dies of liver failure.


I like my Dubstep to go Wop Wop Wop Wop

[Raven01]

I had a brain fart and forgot to ask if you tend to use mice rather than rats on this 3 day cycle. Comparable sized rats to mice for hatchlings would be liable to have a gut-load of milk, whereas the mice would be old enough to be weaned.

[STjepkes]

You clearly don't understand the 10-15% rule so don't recommend it. That whole rule was established ONLY for hatchlings and then people come and read it and just auto assume it is for everything. Several conditions can come into play with a snake being older. STOP recommending it if you don't understand it. Again, I'll state it was a rule established FOR HATCHLINGS.

Well said, Neal.

[STjepkes]

I'm no expert but virtually all animals are capable of eating their way into unhealthy obesity. Yes it is true that many snakes contain an enzyme that actually keeps them from getting heart disease due to the slow metabolism and sedentary lifestyles; snakes can still suffer from liver/kidney problems due to an excess of fats obtained from prey items.

Telling people that snakes will not eat to the point of excess, as if it is empirical truth is simply incorrect.

Snakes are not a new concept in the pet/commercial breeding trade, nor is the information on what is an acceptable diet. Feeding a snake daily is not a healthy approach. Are you aware that snakes have a gastrointestinal fauna that allows them to break down prey items? And that if this biological bacteria is taxed too greatly(feeding too frequently) that their systems will become far less efficient at nutrient uptake? Even to the point of malnourishment regardless of prey items consumed? Ever heard that when a snake regurges that it should be given a week before feeding again? That is to allow time for the bacteria/enzymes in the GI tract to reestablish and become capable of digestion.

Please do, when debating idea like this, come from a stance of curiosity, and not stating empirical fact. Some new people might read this thread and think they should feed their beeper everyday, and wonder why it mysteriously dies of liver failure.


I like my Dubstep to go Wop Wop Wop Wop

Getting tired of this thread so I'll keep it short...

When did anyone ever recommend feeding your snake daily? And we aren't talking about all snakes, we'r'e talking about a specific species that yes, does not have problems with obesity. If I was so wrong don't you think experienced people would have jumped in here by now to correct such a dangerous, and untrue piece of information? Hmm.....the reason I responded the way I did, is because from my experience and many more seasoned peoples experiences it basically is a fact. Though there are always exceptions to rules, however rare they may be.

[Inarikins]

[STjepkes]

Hahaha oh my god I love the Psych Reference so much! You are the best, Inarikins.

[Expensive hobby]

Well just because people do something without consequence doesn't make it fact. The truth of the matter is found in scientific evidence, not a hobbyist breeders experience.

The bottom line is, with irrefutable truth, you can overfeed a Ball Python, and they can become obese, as can virtually any animal in existence, sans maybe simple organisms that actually do not have digestive systems capable of doing such. Never have seen an obese amoeba.

And btw, look back at earlier posts and you will see the daily feeding reference. I wasn't making it up.


I like my Dubstep to go Wop Wop Wop Wop

[200xth]

So I had posted a topic on how big ball pythons get their first year and a couple of you mentioned yours getting 1000-1900 grams their first year. So this brings me to another thought:

As my response in my previous post, my black pastel eats 3-5 days and weighs 220 grams at 3 months old. He is eating every 3-5 days on large to extra large mice. Now, from observation, he probably could eat everyday to every other day just because thats how aggressively hungry he is. Best eater I ever had. Here's the thing, since no one knows really how much snakes eat in the wild, let alone BP's, how do we know we are feeding our snakes enough? wouldn't it make sense they need to grow fast in order to survive in the wild?

You can feed your hatchlings every 3 days if you want. Just have to slow it down as they get older. If your adult is hungry every 3 days, you are most likely feeding him/her too little.

They do need to grow fast in the wild when they're young. Some of them probably could eat every day when they're hatchlings. Most of them probably would be happy to, IMO. I don't think it's a matter of the snake knowing how much it needs to grow. Rather, I think it's a survival mechanism. Animals are built to survive the harshest of conditions, not just ideal conditions. In harsh conditions when you are small, you eat everything you can because you have no idea when the next meal is.

Being small puts you on everyone's menu. When you're on everyone's menu, chances are you will end up as someone's meal. To get bigger and off the menu, you need to eat.

The ones who are born with an innate drive to eat more frequently *WILL* eat more frequently...and thus grow faster giving them a better chance of survival. While they want to eat every day, in the wild odds are they are not eating daily. There will probably be periods of weeks or even months between meals, so if two mice pop in 24 hours apart, you better get them both while you have the chance, because the next meal could be in a month (or longer). If you're the picky wild ball python who eats one day then refuses a meal the next day when the opportunity arises, you're staying small and staying small means two things. First, you're still on the menu. You will be until you are bigger. Second, it means you're lacking the necessary fat reserves needed to survive the long food droughts that are bound to happen.

In your enclosure, with food coming regularly, you are removing the random access to food they experience in the wild, but you cannot remove the built in instinct they've developed over the course of millions of years of evolution. The built in survival mechanism in some of them to eat every chance they can when they're hatchlings is no longer needed in the glass aquarium or plastic tub. It doesn't need to eat every day because unless you're completely careless, the next meal is never 3 or 4 or 8 weeks out...it's in another 4 days or 5 days or 7 days and it's a fat, healthy, juicy rat/mouse/asf stuffed with fat and protein. It's never some scrawny, parasite ridden, diseased runt of a rat that it sees 7 weeks after it's last meal.

He doesn't know that, though, so he still thinks he needs to eat every chance he can. It's built in. Eat...eat everything you can...if it's small enough to eat, grab it, kill it, eat it. Doesn't matter if you just ate 30 mins ago. Get it.

But it doesn't make it healthy longterm. Yes, he can eat 2 days in a row sometimes. Probably 3 or 4 days. But again, what's needed in the harsh conditions these animals are built to survive in, might not be needed in the relatively ideal environment you've created in your little enclosure for him. Millions of snakes being fed every 7 days seems to indicate that that's a good amount for them.

I could be wrong. Who knows? Maybe all of our snakes are starving, but I can't imagine there's a lot of wild ball pythons with diets better than a fat healthy rat every 5 to 7 days.

[satomi325]

Ball Pythons can get overweight. And I do agree with whoever said that keepers do tend to overfeed. And the most common reason is because they go off feed so often and want to pack on fast reserves to endure those fasts. Why are females so much *thicker* than males?? Fat. Fat to keep breeding females from getting their energy and resources sucked dry into producing eggs. But if a female is too fat, it often results in slugging out and poor reproduction.

BPs in the wild probably do not eat regularly and their prey certainly isn't big. An ASF never exceeds small Norway rat size and I see people offering large rats. And feeding 15-20% of an adults weight is ridiculously overkill. And I recall someone in another thread saying they feed 20% of their snakes weight no matter what the age. My hatchlings get rat fuzzies every 4-5 days. My 250g balls get rat pups every 4-5 days. My 500g balls get small rats once a week. My 1000g balls get small rats once a week. My 2000g balls get small rats once a week. That's all they need to achieve and maintain a healthy body condition.
Hatchling metabolism is faster because they use that energy to grow. Adult metabolism is slow because they are no longer growing at that rapid pace.

And people seem to try to grow out their hatchlings as fast as possible to breeding size. I can bet many females in the wild are not breeding till they are 4+ years old, while some breeders try to breed their girls as soon as possible, which could be as young as a year old.



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