Kevin Hit 3.

[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.