I am not willing to beat this into the ground. There was a discussion and a few months ago about power feeding that was excellent. Unfortunately, Kingsnake's search engine does not allow me to find it easily. It sure would come in handy to look at that information again right about now!



"Overfeeding is not a cause of liver failure.

>> Fasting is the cause of Hepatic Lipidosis. When an animal does not eat and starts to use it's fat reserve the fat gets trapped in the liver causing liver failure in some animals. Hepatic Lipidosis has not been proven to cause problems in reptiles especially ones that brumate."



We went from overfeeding, to reasonable feeding, to starvation? I SERIOUSLY doubt that once a week could ever be considered fasting. When I mentioned liver and kidney problems, I did not specify hepatic lipidosis, there are many types of liver failure.



"I feed my hogs what they want."

This is where I really start to have problems.



"I think it is because they have some kind of old school knowledge about how a snake only needs to eat once a week and can go months without eating."

I do agree, kind of like how frogs should only be fed flies!



If I'm allowed to make comparisons to other reptiles I think I can prove my point adequately. Turtles are famous for being overfed in captivity, and clearly exhibiting signs of overfeeding that manifests in their shell growth. People who keep turtles and know nothing about their behavior and their natural history, see the turtles begging as a sign of real hunger necessitating another feeding. Little do they know that resource availability can be scarce and unpredictable for the turtles, which we have already established is a good way to describe the hognose's prey. The obvious explanation for the turtles constant begging is that it does not know when food will be available again, so it dedicates as much energy towards food while it is available. Again along the same parallel, hognoses might want to eat when food is available in preparation for periods of low food availability. In captivity, this feeding method is not short-circuited and the animal continues to eat despite the lack of any cues that food will not be available.



Also, turtles have what I call junk food habits. Where they obviously do not know what is best for them, and continually turned down healthy foods as long as they are able to get their regular foods no matter how ridiculously unhealthy it is for the animal. Some examples of this can be found in AC Highfield's book The Tortoise and Turtles Feeding Manual. Some examples of what people have fed has been down with the justification "I feed my hogs what they want", where the word hogs is replaced with turtles.



Ham and chocolate

bagels with cream cheese

bread, milk and cheese

canned cat food

ice cream and apple pie

peas, beans and dog food



Each line represents what an individual turtle was being fed exclusively. Indisputably horrible diets for a turtle.



I hope that with these examples that it is clearly shown that captive animals don't always know what is good for them. They are unable to make decisions about their own nutrition, even when it is seriously life-threatening, or when it can result in a slow and painful death. It is our responsibility to find the fine line between the desires of the animal and what is actually best for them.

My intent here, was not to pick on you personally Colby. However, it is one thing to subject your own animals to a feeding method that has always been considered controversial. It is another thing to recommend it without any explanation or any warning on these forums where some people will take your word as golden. If you can find some way to justify your feeding methods to yourself, no matter how trivial, then so be it. But the reasoning you have provided is simply not supported by logic and what we know about reptiles. When I think of power feeding, I think of people who are trying to make money off of a living animal without any concern for its welfare. For the majority of the people on here who have relatively small collections for their personal enjoyment, power feeding does nothing to increase the value of their collection.



My reason for spending the massive amount of time I have on these forums is simply because I want what is best for the animals. Power feeding in general does not fit into my classification of acceptable husbandry practices because it is known to be detrimental to the health of the animal.
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*Humans aren't the only species on earth... we just act like it.



".the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without

spoiling it."

Aldo Leopold (1938)

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