I’ll go ahead and stick my nose in on this one even though I’m fairly new here too and the majority of you don’t have a clue as to who I am – I don’t have a website or even a Myspace page…LOL…I start my babies out on rat pups – Pups not pinkies…Pinkies are for Corn snakes not Pythons…If I can’t get them to take rat pups within a few weeks then I try small adult mice…The fast movement from mice is usually what triggers the feeding response in my holdout babies…After a few mice they usually switch over to rat pups…I feed my yearlings smalls and my adults either get smalls or mediums – Live…It’s usually smalls though – I breed my own rats and usually I don’t have enough to let grow up to mediums…I either feed multiples or twice a week…Adult males get smalls every 10 days – Lean males are better breeders for me…I do have several monster females that get F/T larges once a week to every 10 days…I also have several breeder females that eat mice…IMO – Mice suck…It’s time consuming to feed an adult breeder females 5 large mice a feeding - Twice a week to put her weight back on after laying eggs…Not mention breeding mice sucks worse – They stink a whole lot worse than rats…My mice eating females (with the exception of one female) lay smaller clutches than my rat eaters…They take longer to gain their weight back after laying – Did I mention mice stink? I feed to breed if that makes sense – I feed the majority of my collection small meals multiple times a week…I learned a long – long time ago from raising and breeding Colubrids that it’s easier and faster to digest a smaller meal than a larger meal and if you can keep food in their stomach from multiple smaller food items you’ll get better growth than by feeding a big meal once a week…In all seriousness – Do what works for you…That’s what’s worked for me in the past and if it ain’t broke – I ain’t fixing it…There’s a reason I (and many – many others) can get young (and I mean young) males to breed and produce fertile clutches…There’s a reason 95% of my females produce every year and don’t need to “skip” a year in production…IMO – I believe I can achieve these things because the husbandry practices that I use produce thriving snakes – The proofs in the pudding so to say…To those that are feeding pinkies – Grab some small mice or rat pups for your BP and give the pinkies to the Corns…To those that are feeding hoppers to snakes that are a few months old make the switch to large adult mice or weanling rat pups…Get your nose out of the books and get in your snake room – They’ll teach you more than any book ever will…For the record – I have a modest collection of BP’s (125 keepers – plus or minus a few)…I also keep a handful of Boas, Womas, JCP’s and Borneo Shortails…Yep – I even have some Corn snakes too – They get the pinkies…LOL…
BT