Getting chunky?

[Lirenn]

She doesn't look overweight to me at all.

I guessing her next deuce will be a good one. She could be holding onto it because she's going into shed.

She actually just shed last week and dropped a nice big one. Haha.

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[CALM Pythons]

Any idea why they tend to hold their poo until after they shed? Seems holding it in would just add more irritation to the shed process. Then again, I'm not a BP.

I don't believe it's a choice at all I just think the moving from shedding and the pushing hard ends up making them go...


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[CALM Pythons]

I am actually a little confused about feeding though. The table that gets passed around shows I should feed her a 100g rat weekly, but I have seen a lot of people say every two weeks is best.

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I do not follow that chart after the "500-100 gram" snake recommendation".
I feed around a 100 gram rat to my 1600 gram female. I feed under sized prey also to my 700 gram female. Hers are usually about 50-60 grams or if i have smaller i just give her 2. I breed all my own feeders so I do what ever is easy to get rid off access Rats too...
As far as every 7 days I don't do that after they are a year old otherwise they just go off a few times a yr from over feeding.



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[Lirenn]

I do not follow that chart after the "500-100 gram" snake recommendation".
I feed around a 100 gram rat to my 1600 gram female. I feed under sized prey also to my 700 gram female. Hers are usually about 50-60 grams or if i have smaller i just give her 2. I breed all my own feeders so I do what ever is easy to get rid off access Rats too...
As far as every 7 days I don't do that after they are a year old otherwise they just go off a few times a yr from over feeding.



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So every 2 weeks would be ideal?

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[cchardwick]

I've had a few ball pythons that put on weight fast, it's possible to get 700 grams in a month. I had a couple that were starved for the first year before I got them, super skinny. I gave them all my extra rats and they grew like a rocket. Also if you have a large snake that just laid eggs it's possible to gain that much. I think some of my big snakes lay eggs about 100 grams each and with 10 eggs that's 1000 grams of weight loss. Some will eat three rats back to back right after laying since they have been fasting for so long.

[Craiga 01453]

I do not follow that chart after the "500-100 gram" snake recommendation".
I feed around a 100 gram rat to my 1600 gram female. I feed under sized prey also to my 700 gram female. Hers are usually about 50-60 grams or if i have smaller i just give her 2. I breed all my own feeders so I do what ever is easy to get rid off access Rats too...
As far as every 7 days I don't do that after they are a year old otherwise they just go off a few times a yr from over feeding.



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I agree, the 10-15% rule is out the door at a certain point. Once they hit adult weight as long as they're getting a decent regular meal and maintaining good body proportion I go smaller as well.

[Craiga 01453]

Any idea why they tend to hold their poo until after they shed? Seems holding it in would just add more irritation to the shed process. Then again, I'm not a BP.

My best guess is to conserve energy. As ambush predators, they're not going to be out hunting with compromised vision, so a new meal is unlikely.

Even in captivity they tend to not leave their hides during a shed cycle. I'm guessing they want to stay put, conserve energy and not attract predators. Since feces and urates have an odor, they probably hold it to not attract predators as well.

But, those are just my hypotheses...

[Lirenn]

So 80-120g every two weeks sounds reasonable?

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[Lirenn]

Visited the vet today for a checkup and it looks like she was just bouncing back up to her original weight. She's actually about 100g less than she was at her first appointment and doc said she looked good. So no worries about being chunky.

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