I tried to respond to the 20 foot albino granite thread, where we received an equal amount of undue and somewhat misguided criticism but it is locked and I was unable to respond. I hope the moderators don't mind if I address that issue here briefly and perhaps this post can be moved to the end of the other, appropriate thread.

Where to begin. Once again so many people with so many opinions that are WAY off base. Statements that we "abuse" our animals. That our animals are "obese" and so many more. Apparently we are not well known in this smaller, ball python circle of herpers, but we care about our animals and love them all very much. We don't abuse them. We don't mistreat our breeders in any way, shape or form. We don't overfeed them. Though granted, I can see where that picture can lead a "non-burm" person to get the impression that we do. But we actually pay very close attention to proper dietary needs and we intentionally avoid obesity and overfeeding with a passion. We bring up our raiser stock/future breeders intentionally slow so as to specifically avoid obesity.

Here are the FACTS about that particular female in that highly controversial picture: (never thought I would say that, lol)

The picture was taken on the second day after she ate a 60 pound pig. This is the point in digestion where 1/3 of the meal is digested partially and the intestines are full and very distended. This is when the remainder of the meal "softens" and actually expands as it digests and is broken down. This is the point when the meal is at its largest and I thought some people might actually be interested in seeing what it is like when a giant takes a huge meal. I guessed wrong obviously.

That female is NOT obese. That pig was her first meal since Sep 01 when she was put into cooling. That's over three months since her last meal. Prior to that she was fed maybe one 10 pound rabbit each month as a maintenance diet. When I feed my babies large pigs the meals are spaced much much further apart or it is after egg laying or a long fast when the python is underweight. Mature pythons don't need as much food to maintain a good body weight as most inexperienced folks think they do. Their metabolisms slow down dramatically and they don't require as much as a snake half their weight that is still growing.

As to the cage size: Yes, she is in an 8x3 cage in the picture. Most breeders of large pythons use this exact size cage for their larger stock. But she does get moved between 8x4 cages too. She just happened to be in an 8x3 when she took the pig. But it's really no harm or foul though as pythons tend to move very little during digestion. Once her meal was digested down in 4 days she was 1/4 that girth and she fits very nicely into that cage. The immense meal distorts the overall perspective greatly.

I hope this helped to clear up some of the false assumptions about us and what we do and how we run our breeding facilities and overall operations. If anyone has any questions, please, feel free to email me and I'll gladly answer them. Or give me a call. I'm always up for herp chat.

David Beauchemin
High End Herps Inc
http://www.HighEndHerps.com/
(318)335-3673