Remember that captivity is not a natural state, so as hobbyists (in the case of ball pythons, anyway) our goal is to get our snakes as plump as possible for a couple reasons:

1) In case the snake decides to go on a diet. If your snake suddenly goes off feed for no reason that you can fathom, it's much less of a worry if you have a hefty snake to begin with. Skinny snakes refusing to eat = scary, but a plump snake refusing to eat is just being picky.

2) Breeding. Females we like to plump up much more than males due to the toll that breeding takes on the ladies. Notice most males aren't really that pudgy at all. The girls, though, get the weight packed on. They will lay more eggs and be in better condition after laying eggs if they are pleasantly plump - not fat, not lean, but plump. It's kind of like how models and actresses look good when they're skinny and fit, but the women you see with tons of kids are the ones that have a few extra pounds but not much more than that.



Make sense?



~jenny
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1.2 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, and Periscope)

0.2 rescue chinese water dragons (Yoni and Linga)

1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)

1.0 gerbil (Yerbul)

0.1 bunny (Spazz)

1.1 betta fishes (Vicious and Killer)

2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)

1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)

1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)

2.0 horses (Buddy and Sam)

1.0 goat (Billy Jack)

1.25 chickens (Ugly the rooster and his harem)



"The problem with America is stupidity. Now, I'm not saying we use capital punishment, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"

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