Just to clarify my position, all my posts in this thread are in regard to feeding baby growing snakes. I feed adults less frequently and smaller meals relative to their body size, which is healthy maintenance..
when I said”maintenance feeding”, I was using the term the way breeders use it when they are basically starving baby snakes so they don’t grow too fast, and thus purposely stunting their growth.
REAL maintenance feeding as Zina and other very intelligent, experienced keepers here advocate, is very smart to do for mature snakes. “Maintenance feeding” a small, young snake is borderline animal abuse imo. Even if it isn’t really that unhealthy, I still personally like thriving, healthy large mature adults. And the above posted article demonstrates an idea that this kind of practice of undergeeding hatchlings not only temporarily stunts growth of juvenile growing snakes, but has long term metabolic consequences.
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