....because I feel that there is little doubt that stunting does occur. This is one reason why I try to get the most growth I can out of my girls the first year or so of their lives. I feel that any length not gained in the first few years can never be completely retrieved, for lack of a better term. In the 80's I purchased scores if not hundreds of adult pythons to add to my breeding colonies and I was very obsessive then about growth and overall size and I kept very detailed records. I still have these old records in filing cabnets. But one constant was that if I got a female with any considerable age, her growth was a MUCH smaller percentage, in a "pound to inch", "food to growth" capacity. And her ability to attain an overall large size was very much affected. But these particular females tended to have tremendous girths too. Obviously the food would go toward this in lieu of length. Breeding also seemed and seems to inhibit growth in a very marked way. But to answer your question,.. Yes, I personally feel that stunting due to a deprived diet is somewhat permanent, but not 100%.



>>Got offered a Burm last night(again-same one I posted about a couple months ago), and was wondering-with so many people who have 100 pound plus Burms at the 5-6 year mark, how likely is this one to be stunted? His original owner bought him as a hatchling, didn't feed him right, had him for 3-4 years, and the person offering him to me has had him for another (approximate) 2 years. This snake is 10-11 feet long and roughly 25 pounds. I was talking with a couple friends about this tonight and we were trying to figure out whether it's more likely for him to stay "somewhere" in this size range, or will he have a growth spurt with a feeding schedule that is closer to "correct".If he's stunted, the damage is done, but if he's more likely to get big it looks like cage plans are in order. For the record, he's gained about 3 inches and maybe 5 pounds in the last year-the person who wants to sell him to me(would rather they give him to me) is an acquaintance, and has a fair sized female albino as well, changed their minds on breeding ambitions.
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It isn't "Ideas" that fail or succeed,... it is the "Systems" which are instilled to launch and sustain the idea that either fail or succeed.>[Me.]

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