Kevin Hit 3.

[Craiga 01453]

Great info all. Thanks for sharing!

Wrong Python, dropping knowledge bombs!!! Awesome post!!!!

[CloudtheBoa]

Very nice carpet there Gio! Happy birthday, Kevin! Looks like his any bdays are very close together. XD I was definitely thinking of a carpet before I got River, and if they get a tad bit bigger than boas, then maybe I'll have to consider carpets instead of retics. lmao I like the bigger snakes, but I don't think I could have too many Rivers. I didn't think they got anywhere near as big as has been discussed here, which is part of the reason I didn't get any yet. I thought they stayed about the same size or smaller than boa constrictors with some subspecies or localities sometimes getting up to 8'.

I'm reasonably confident I know the photo you are talking about, it was a friend of Gus R in the photo with his hands on the neck of a huge female boa.

You guys covered male combat and some other stuff so I'm going back to an earlier comment I made about 'big snakes eat big meals'. Gus R. talked about raising many boas to 8 feet on rats, but the ones that he raised to greater lengths required larger prey. It didn't have anything to do with nutrition, maybe something to do with calories but I don't think it was the amount of calories over the period of a year but the amount of calories per meal that did 'something'. A mature female BCO here grew more (length) on just 3 meals of 4+ pound rabbits in a year than the previous two years on rats. I've see similar results with other boa. IMO large meals activate something in their genes triggering growth.

I know my buddy Gio has this thread in Carpets but I know boas so I have to relate those observations and if he doesn't like it on his thread, too bad! Friend .

You always hear Suriname Guyana boa keepers talk about feeding mice the first year, not feeding too often, not feeding too large, etc...and its all true but how is it the largest bc on the planet are such slow starters? And how is it that even a 9-10 foot captive born Suriname/Guyana boa is very rare (let alone something really big)? Something happens to boas as they age and granted genetics are a factor as an individual boa, differences in other subs of boas (when the BCO were young in my care they could eat meals with ease that I wouldn't feed to a much larger non adult Suriname boa) and even location within a sub is a factor (I don't believe a Pokigron Suriname boa will reach the size of some of the Suriname boas brought into the country 35-40 years ago). As a boa matures they are more capable of eating large meals. As keepers most say meal size should be equal to their body width -a good practice for sure but mature boas thrive when going beyond this size guideline and can swallow larger prey with an ease they didn't have when they were younger. A mature 7 foot Pokigron Suriname eats rabbits over 2 pounds with ease but I never would have fed a meal as large (relative to size) when it was a younger snake.

I think males in some boa subs (areas of location) have the potential to reach large sizes but they don't. Import houses get in really big females once in a while but I've never heard of males that compare...why is that? I have a theory. As I said above, large meals trigger growth and as they mature they are capable of eating much larger prey as compared to percentage of body mass than when they were younger. That pertains to sex because the female boa is desperate after giving birth, eating anything she can fit in her pie hole that she crosses paths with and she is spending way more time looking for things to cross her path than a male. This combined with luck and years of being successful lead to a large female snake. Mature males in captivity (and I'd bet are similar in the wild) are about conserving resources (they are lazy). They hunt less and require much less food. Even non breeding females are wanting to be fed more than males in captivity.

Breeders may never noticed the ability for prey size increase in mature boas as it doesn't matter to them and I think other keepers who have observed it don't talk about it because they don't want to influence a keeper into doing something that is outside of their 'range'. I hesitate to post some of this food size 'stuff' because I don't want someone with a limited understanding to kill their boa. It is an absolute fact that increased calorie intake in a young boa will not give you a large, old boa and overfeeding an adult boa will only get you a fat adult...like my buddy Gio quoting Gus...the largest boas are the oldest.

Idk about you, but I feel it's pretty dang obvious a 4 lb rabbit is going to hit the growth spurts harder than a rat that might max out at 3 lbs if you're lucky. Feeding a boa 4 lb rabbit is quite like feeding it 4 jumbo rats a sitting instead of just one large. Of course it's going to have more growth, it's more food! Ime, if you keep the size of rabbits closer to the size of a rat you'd normally feed it...the growth is about the same, although they'll keep more body mass than with rats alone on a conservative schedule. My boas eating large rats start out on 1/2 lb rabbits, very roughly the same size as a large rat. I don't currently have a boa I'd consider feeding a 1 lb rabbit, let alone a 4 lb rabbit. My biggest is only 7', though, so she gets 1/2-3/4 lb rabbits, if she was closer to 8' maybe she'd get those 1 lb rabbits. Obviously, they can take larger, but I learned the hard way with Cloud that as little as 1-2 overly-large rabbits can put on a LOT of excess weight and not necessarily a ton of length growth. You want growth, but you don't want to make them fat, either.

Now it is interesting that more snakes aren't larger of any given species, as they do grow even on "small" amounts of food, and given time they grow no matter how far behind they're put with periods of low food intake. My 2010 male has grown half a foot in the 4 years he's been with me: and that's despite a roughly half year period of lowered food intake due to the overheating incident, and only getting a small rat every 3 weeks. I was not feeding him any more often than his typical 2-3 weeks (3 weeks more often than not nowadays) even when he was getting half-sized rats. Could it just be that there isn't a large population of mature enough individuals to show more of the massive side? Or maybe even genetics, like you say, if most of those are from populations or bloodlines with less size potential. But if food intake affects size I'm definitely interested to see how big my conservatively-fed snakes are in another 5 years, and to see how my more mature snakes continue to grow. Cloud only grows a couple inches every few years atm, and I didn't measure Dominika when I first got her so it'll be a few more years probably before I'll notice any (IF any) growth from her. She has put on at least a pound of weight since the day I got her and that's despite slimming down her girth, so I expect she did grow a few inches since I got her, I just wasn't keeping track.

[Gio]

Carpets get plenty long.




And as far as large prey goes, I think there is an adaptation that occurs when the only prey source available is large prey.

A similar and opposite situation that developed with true SD retics. SD retics are smaller because they rely on migratory prey and seasonal changes.

They simply don't have food sources that are frequent enough and large enough to sustain great size.

The island boa species rely on migratory birds and not large mammals as a food source.

Mainland boas most certainly have a wide variety of prey and some of it is quite large.

There is a video of a boa ingesting a large Howler Monkey. (easy to find the video) without much fuss.

BNS also alerted me to some studies that involved rat snakes that became extremely large because of the size of the prey they had available to them.

The size of the prey was the determining factor.

What I gathered was that more frequent, smaller meals did not create the same growth as less frequent larger meals.

I feel the adaptation to eating larger and larger prey creates a different type of growth than staying on small prey more frequently.

[CloudtheBoa]

Carpets get plenty long.




And as far as large prey goes, I think there is an adaptation that occurs when the only prey source available is large prey.

A similar and opposite situation that developed with true SD retics. SD retics are smaller because they rely on migratory prey and seasonal changes.

They simply don't have food sources that are frequent enough and large enough to sustain great size.

The island boa species rely on migratory birds and not large mammals as a food source.

Mainland boas most certainly have a wide variety of prey and some of it is quite large.

There is a video of a boa ingesting a large Howler Monkey. (easy to find the video) without much fuss.

BNS also alerted me to some studies that involved rat snakes that became extremely large because of the size of the prey they had available to them.

The size of the prey was the determining factor.

What I gathered was that more frequent, smaller meals did not create the same growth as less frequent larger meals.

I feel the adaptation to eating larger and larger prey creates a different type of growth than staying on small prey more frequently.

Dang that is a decent sized carpet! I truly thought they were the outliers. Maybe in 2 years you all will see me with some carpets.

That’s definitely interesting. I wonder if with time my boas fed conservatively would still attain those lengths, or if they’ll fall short however long a time they’re growing.

Cloud had a lot of extremely large prey as a juvenile (jumbos when he should have still been on smalls for about 6-7 meals), but it was still all I could do to get him to 6’ by 3 years old. At 9 years old he’s only made it to 6’8”, though he grows an inch or two reliably every year. Although I’m sure it’s a useful adaptation I am not willing to push my snakes’ sizes with bigger prey. With how frequently they eat in captivity I feel that would result in a fat snake before a big one, when my snakes are clearly growing steadily even on the smaller prey items. What I don’t know is if they’ll still attain 8’-9’+ sizes, or remain at more reasonable lengths. But that’s not important to me if it means artificially increasing their size.


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[dakski]

Great thread going here (sorry Kevin - we seemed to have forgotten this is your thread, at least a little).

I'll weigh in briefly and as best as I can on my thoughts of Boas and Carpets growing and food intake.

I've always heard the with boas, less is more. Smaller meals and less often than you might feed other species.

For example, Behira has been on medium rats for a while now - since about 1,100G or so and she was eating them every 3 weeks (until her shed thing and now it's more frequently - however, and more on this in a minute, it's a much smaller meal for her now). She continues to grow at a reasonable pace, fast, but not noticeable. She's 4 and I do not expect her to reach adult size for another 2-3 years, depending on if I offer large rats at any point. I will never offer jumbos or XL's, etc. to her as boas do not tolerate fatty prey as well as other species can.

Basically, Boas are incredibly efficient and grow well on smaller prey items relative to other species (I do not know of other species that would be steadily growing on a meal of about 5% body weight every 2-3 weeks). This is also why if people feed a large boa a rabbit, it's every 4-6 weeks, or less often.

Now, I've spoken to Jeff Ronne (the Boaphile) about Behira quite a bit. He still thinks feeding her medium rats (100-125G or so) every 10 days to 2 weeks is better than a large rat (180-200G) or so every 3 weeks. Part of that is because her shedding issues have finally improved (she was shedding very frequently for some unknown reason, with the best guess being a hormonal change around puberty) and frequently feeding smaller meals = growth with less stress on her system, has seemed to help extend the duration of her sheds from every 16-18 days to about a month now. Of course, this could all be coincidence and not causation and she's just working out her own "whatever."

However, he did say that I don't need to feed her large rats now unless I really want her growing. I didn't ask specifically, but it seems to go to what was said earlier by several here about the larger prey = more growth faster. Like their growth kicks into another gear.

He also knows, that I never want to feed her rabbits (supply is tough) and won't go over large rats so he might be pacing me. I also told him that Katie is worried about Behira's adult size a little and this would give her more time to adjust to Behira's growth while not hurting Behira at all. So part of it may be not wanting me to have too large a boa too quickly.

He did think that feeding mediums and then larges and never going bigger would still equal a 7-8FT Behira, eventually, but that it would take a long time and probably be better for her in the long run.

He told me a story once about a boa his daughter wanted to keep, but didn't want it huge. As a test, She/Jeff never fed it more than small rats. I think he said she maxed out about 6FT or so eventually, but lived 20+ years.

This goes to the point of how we feed can impact both time it takes for a boa to reach size and overall size.

I eventually expect Behira to be a big girl, but a healthy and muscular big girl. I've seen and held 7+ FT female BI's and they are in the 15-18LB range, not 30+ pounds like many people seem to want them while feeding rabbits, etc. Not to say that a BI cannot be 30lbs or other types of boas for that matter. I could see an adult suriname around there, or a BCO for sure, and a large example of a BI, okay. But in general, a 7FT BI at 30 pounds is (potentially) overweight.

Okay, on to carpets and then I will make sense of all this.

I've read and experienced carpet pythons doing well with large meals. Even for my growing boas, I keep the meal smaller than their girth, for the most part - it's close either way in the beginning when going up food size. I generally won't feed more than 10% of body weight in a meal to a boa either.

CP's can handle large meals exceptionally well and they seem to prefer it. Yafe seems to enjoy a challenge and hits a growth spurt when I go up a size on prey. He's eating 60-70G small rats with ease (He's 650+ grams now but was closer to 500g when I started him on that size ) and growing swiftly. He could probably take smaller mediums now, but I won't go there until his growth slows.

I've heard/read that carpet pythons can easily take 15%+ of their body weight. I definitely see a lump in Yafe when he eats a small rat now, but it's gone pretty quick.

Finally, the issue of captivity vs. wild. In the wild, I doubt there are too many fat snakes. In captivity, we have too many fat snakes. Unhealthy snakes.

Sometimes I think people think the size of their snake somehow helps the size of other things - sadly it's mostly helping fragile ego.

Our responsibility as keepers is to do what's best for our animals. Not what we think is cool for us.

Anyway, in summary.

1. Boas should be slow grown. Smaller meals and decent duration between meals, especially as they age.

It's for their own good and you will probably have a healthy snake for a long time. If given reasonable (not big) meals, a boa can still reach a large size, but it takes longer and probably more, smaller, food items. Same for maintaining. An adult boa on large rats might eat every 3-4 weeks to stay healthy vs. 6-7 weeks for one on larger rabbits.


2. Carpet Pythons like big meals and can handle them. Lump = no issue for them. 15% of body weight is fine for them. Keep in mind that safety is not a concern when feeding F/T but might be with large meals that are live. This goes in general, but specifically for feeding larger rats etc. that can do damage.


3. Fat snakes in the wild, not so much. Many in captivity. Remember, no one cares how fast or big you can grow your snake especially if you are hurting the snake. It has no positive reflection on you.

[bns]

...Idk about you, but I feel it's pretty dang obvious a 4 lb rabbit is going to hit the growth spurts harder than a rat that might max out at 3 lbs if you're lucky.Feeding a boa 4 lb rabbit is quite like feeding it 4 jumbo rats a sitting instead of just one large. Of course it's going to have more growth, it's more food! Ime, if you keep the size of rabbits closer to the size of a rat you'd normally feed it...the growth is about the same, although they'll keep more body mass than with rats alone on a conservative schedule. My boas eating large rats start out on 1/2 lb rabbits, very roughly the same size as a large rat. I don't currently have a boa I'd consider feeding a 1 lb rabbit, let alone a 4 lb rabbit. My biggest is only 7', though, so she gets 1/2-3/4 lb rabbits, if she was closer to 8' maybe she'd get those 1 lb rabbits. Obviously, they can take larger, but I learned the hard way with Cloud that as little as 1-2 overly-large rabbits can put on a LOT of excess weight and not necessarily a ton of length growth. You want growth, but you don't want to make them fat, either.

I'm not sure if you understand (exactly) what I'm relaying or not because it is not obvious...One would think that X calories equals X growth and while that is the case with immature boa it is not the case with adult boa and even less the case with mature boa. I'm talking about the same amount of food. -Fed the same amount of calories...XX number of lean rats spread out over a year equal to 12lbs of rabbit...or feeding three 4lb rabbit over the same amount of time does not have the same growth affect on an adult boa. Its even less intuitive but when one feeds conservatively and provides long winters without food (3-5 months) the large meal growth affect is even more pronounced in mature adults.

I don't know what 'Cloud' is but if you are feeding on a schedule year round and gave it a couple extra meals or missed the metabolism shift as it passed sexual maturity, I could see how that would lead to being fat. While a year round feeding schedule is less than ideal it can be done but any year round feeding schedule needs to be closely watched to make adjustments. A mature 7 footer (BCO/BCC/BCI) here will eat 2lb rabbits with ease. Mature being the key word. Again, I don't know what Cloud is and I'm not typing any of this to challenge anyone...just providing observations for keepers with an interest.

Now it is interesting that more snakes aren't larger of any given species, as they do grow even on "small" amounts of food, and given time they grow no matter how far behind they're put with periods of low food intake. My 2010 male has grown half a foot in the 4 years he's been with me: and that's despite a roughly half year period of lowered food intake due to the overheating incident, and only getting a small rat every 3 weeks. I was not feeding him any more often than his typical 2-3 weeks (3 weeks more often than not nowadays) even when he was getting half-sized rats. Could it just be that there isn't a large population of mature enough individuals to show more of the massive side? Or maybe even genetics, like you say, if most of those are from populations or bloodlines with less size potential.

Genetics/location/seasons (periods without food or greatly reduced food)/sex/and prey size are all factors affecting size of a boa.

But if food intake affects size I'm definitely interested to see how big my conservatively-fed snakes are in another 5 years, and to see how my more mature snakes continue to grow. Cloud only grows a couple inches every few years atm, and I didn't measure Dominika when I first got her so it'll be a few more years probably before I'll notice any (IF any) growth from her. She has put on at least a pound of weight since the day I got her and that's despite slimming down her girth, so I expect she did grow a few inches since I got her, I just wasn't keeping track.

A conservatively fed boa means different things to different folks. If you are feeding your boas smallish meals year round (some would call this conservatively) as adults they will continue to grow slowly as all reptiles do but a boa kept in this manner (except the rare gene) will not be as large (read long) of a boa kept differently on a conservative schedule. -A boa fed small meals year round is much less likely to attain the same length of a boa provided seasons with an ever increasing (relative) prey size even if the same calories are fed.

[bns]

Carpets get plenty long.




And as far as large prey goes, I think there is an adaptation that occurs when the only prey source available is large prey.

A similar and opposite situation that developed with true SD retics. SD retics are smaller because they rely on migratory prey and seasonal changes.

They simply don't have food sources that are frequent enough and large enough to sustain great size.

The island boa species rely on migratory birds and not large mammals as a food source.

Mainland boas most certainly have a wide variety of prey and some of it is quite large.

There is a video of a boa ingesting a large Howler Monkey. (easy to find the video) without much fuss.

BNS also alerted me to some studies that involved rat snakes that became extremely large because of the size of the prey they had available to them.

The size of the prey was the determining factor.

What I gathered was that more frequent, smaller meals did not create the same growth as less frequent larger meals.

I feel the adaptation to eating larger and larger prey creates a different type of growth than staying on small prey more frequently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9QtzELnqaw

[CloudtheBoa]

I'm not sure if you understand (exactly) what I'm relaying or not because it is not obvious...One would think that X calories equals X growth and while that is the case with immature boa it is not the case with adult boa and even less the case with mature boa. I'm talking about the same amount of food. -Fed the same amount of calories...XX number of lean rats spread out over a year equal to 12lbs of rabbit...or feeding three 4lb rabbit over the same amount of time does not have the same growth affect on an adult boa. Its even less intuitive but when one feeds conservatively and provides long winters without food (3-5 months) the large meal growth affect is even more pronounced in mature adults.

I don't know what 'Cloud' is but if you are feeding on a schedule year round and gave it a couple extra meals or missed the metabolism shift as it passed sexual maturity, I could see how that would lead to being fat. While a year round feeding schedule is less than ideal it can be done but any year round feeding schedule needs to be closely watched to make adjustments. A mature 7 footer (BCO/BCC/BCI) here will eat 2lb rabbits with ease. Mature being the key word. Again, I don't know what Cloud is and I'm not typing any of this to challenge anyone...just providing observations for keepers with an interest.



Genetics/location/seasons (periods without food or greatly reduced food)/sex/and prey size are all factors affecting size of a boa.


A conservatively fed boa means different things to different folks. If you are feeding your boas smallish meals year round (some would call this conservatively) as adults they will continue to grow slowly as all reptiles do but a boa kept in this manner (except the rare gene) will not be as large (read long) of a boa kept differently on a conservative schedule. -A boa fed small meals year round is much less likely to attain the same length of a boa provided seasons with an ever increasing (relative) prey size even if the same calories are fed.

I would not inherently guess feeding a snake the same amount of food it'd eat in 3 months for one feeding to equate to a certain amount of growth. Surely, if you were to feed a snake a 4 lb rabbit every 3 months (assuming your snake would eat that much in that short a time frame), the snake would use just what it needed at the time and store the rest as fat? Fat, especially in snakes, takes a LOT of time to burn and convert to energy, so by the time it gets its next 4 lb meal it has yet to use any of that stored fat...I *personally* would assume a snake to utilize the calories from a 4 lb rabbit every 3 months differently than it would utilize 4 lbs of rabbit spread over 3 meals in a 3 month span. But that's what I would have assumed.

I guess you can't see my signature if you're using mobile. :/ Cloud is my 2011 BI. Back before I joined this forum, he was fed every week, year round, and even as much as 5 days the first year. I would see 1"-3" of growth every single week. But that growth only went on for so long before the frequent (and sometimes large) meals stopped resulting in so much rapid growth. Even before I started implementing his current seasonal, conservative schedule, his growth hit a rapid plateau. And yes, he was definitely fat during that time until this forum set me straight and I drastically changed his feeding. I was feeding him at this heightened pace for about the first 2.5 years of his life, so technically between his abnormally large size for his age at the time, and being past the minimum 18 month maturity for a male, I was pushing food into him past maturity. So, you do bring up a good point, and I wonder how that growth would have been impacted had I kept on with the large meals and fed seasonally. Would he still have hit a plateau? My intuition would say yes, but that may not necessarily reflect reality - regardless I am very hesitant to attempt it with any of my snakes, pythons, boas, or otherwise. Nowadays, he's 6'8" and he eats maybe 9 meals a year. Meaning, if he got a 1/2 lb rabbit every single meal that's only 4.5 lbs for the entire year. But realistically, he gets less than that, as most of his meals are rats below 300 grams to avoid fatty prey items. I only use the rabbits to help pad him over his winter fast and get him started after I end it.

My 7' female could probably take a 2+ lb rabbit with little fuss, but I prefer not to give her even a 1 lb rabbit. She also gets 1/2 lb rabbits, with the occasional large 3/4 lb. I have given her one or two 1-1.5 lb rabbits just to use them up - I forgot to bring my scale when I picked up the rabbits and they were 3x the size I would have liked. The 1-1.5 lb rabbits left quite noticeable, large bulges in her, and I prefer to give her meals that you can't see a bulge so I quickly stopped that. Now I'm feeding a couple of those to my ~11.5' retic, as she seems to do best on a 2-3 lb meal. I would never consider giving my 7' boa a 2 lb rabbit, even if she were to only eat those 3 times a year - as said above, I think a snake utilizes moderately-sized meals on a more frequent schedule better than they would a large meal a couple times a year. My bp definitely hit heavier weights eating a small rat every 2-3 weeks vs a medium rat every 2 months - which he'd do of his own accord despite me offering every other week (or less if he was going on a 4-6 month fast like he liked to do for about 3-4 years). (Edit to add: yes, she is fed seasonally as well: though I am feeding her year round this year as I attempted to breed her, and I'll want her eating after she gives birth - if she does.)

[bns]

...

Anyway, in summary.

1. Boas should be slow grown. Smaller meals and decent duration between meals, especially as they age.

...

I know folks say this with good intentions so I mean no disrespect...but I don't like that phrase. What does it mean? Slow as compared to what?

That phrase is used today because keepers many years ago noticed that voracious baby boa could pound down the chow and get big quick. In some subs it could even lead to litters sooner. Many packed the food in young boas because they wanted a rapid return on investment by selling some trait. In the short term (8years or so) it seemed to work but it was eventually learned that it negatively affected life span and over the course of the reproductive years a boa that was "slow grown" would 'outperform' its fat counterpart. Live longer, higher fecundity...win win.

'Slow grown' as compared to the overfeeding way that didn't work well long term.

Boas should be fed as individuals. The rate changes as they age. The temperatures/seasons offered/daylight times offered/sex/use of reproduction/sub...all these things have influence.

[bns]

I would not inherently guess feeding a snake the same amount of food it'd eat in 3 months for one feeding to equate to a certain amount of growth. Surely, if you were to feed a snake a 4 lb rabbit every 3 months (assuming your snake would eat that much in that short a time frame), the snake would use just what it needed at the time and store the rest as fat? Fat, especially in snakes, takes a LOT of time to burn and convert to energy, so by the time it gets its next 4 lb meal it has yet to use any of that stored fat...I *personally* would assume a snake to utilize the calories from a 4 lb rabbit every 3 months differently than it would utilize 4 lbs of rabbit spread over 3 meals in a 3 month span. But that's what I would have assumed.

Excess is stored as fat. The difference in how that store is used is what I'm talking about. Large infrequent meals with seasonal fasting triggers stores to be used as growth vs many small meals that are more likely to be stored as fat and not used towards growth. (-This depends on age, seasonality etc -covered that earlier...)

I guess you can't see my signature if you're using mobile. :/ Cloud is my 2011 BI. Back before I joined this forum, he was fed every week, year round, and even as much as 5 days the first year. I would see 1"-3" of growth every single week. But that growth only went on for so long before the frequent (and sometimes large) meals stopped resulting in so much rapid growth. Even before I started implementing his current seasonal, conservative schedule, his growth hit a rapid plateau. And yes, he was definitely fat during that time until this forum set me straight and I drastically changed his feeding. I was feeding him at this heightened pace for about the first 2.5 years of his life, so technically between his abnormally large size for his age at the time, and being past the minimum 18 month maturity for a male, I was pushing food into him past maturity. So, you do bring up a good point, and I wonder how that growth would have been impacted had I kept on with the large meals and fed seasonally. Would he still have hit a plateau?

Yes, he would have hit a plateau but it would have occurred years later.

My intuition would say yes, but that may not necessarily reflect reality - regardless I am very hesitant to attempt it with any of my snakes, pythons, boas, or otherwise. Nowadays, he's 6'8" and he eats maybe 9 meals a year. Meaning, if he got a 1/2 lb rabbit every single meal that's only 4.5 lbs for the entire year. But realistically, he gets less than that, as most of his meals are rats below 300 grams to avoid fatty prey items. I only use the rabbits to help pad him over his winter fast and get him started after I end it.

Sounds about right to me.

(Edit to add: yes, she is fed seasonally as well: though I am feeding her year round this year as I attempted to breed her, and I'll want her eating after she gives birth - if she does.)

Why the change?