Grow Faster, Breed Sooner? (NOT POWER FEEDING)

[Ball_Pythons4life]

For a snake to digest a meal it requires a dramatic increase in heart rate. Keeping a snake in a constant state of digestion is taxing and it makes no difference what label is applied (power feeding or not power feeding).

What's going on here was done in the boa morph 'business' a long time ago. During the early years of that mess, there was bragging about results and talk about how there were no long term negative consequences only because the idea of long term was 8 years. After, it was realized that there was an effect even in the first third of a boas life but it still continued. It continued because it was never about the boas best interests...and it continues today just in silence.

It looks to me like the breeder in question got called out because folks wanted to know how litters were being produced so quickly...the rest looks like human nature to me. The first time it was done there was finger crossing and hope -there is no way anyone would convince me that this experiment was started with the snakes best interest in mind...

Did the increase in heart rate give them a shorter lifespan? we could probably draw a pretty accurate hypothesis about this experiment from that one.