Posted by:
bluerosy
at Fri Sep 30 22:39:45 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by bluerosy ]
If I can get a kingsnake to eat a fuzzy in the third meal I consider that a success because that snake usually turns out to be a chow hound and grows at a fast rate. I follow up with several larger meals (in close succession) in the folowing weeks. The next 4 weeks should see a significant weight and size increase which will determine if that particular snake is able to attain breeding size in 1 year. If I back off the meals after there first fuzzies (something I have been known to do) they can resort back to a normal growth pattern.
The first meat or two and the timing of it can be crucial in development for some to be huge in a year and others being average.
I think the larger fuzzies have more calcium and nutrition than a pinky, which is mostly made up of water with very low nutritional value. I am sure in the wild neonate kingsnakes snake eat other snakes , lizards and the like to get them started better. If you feed a human baby powdered milk it will be malnutrioned, weak and inferior. This child is more apt to succumb to health problems during the first stages of life. Thats why I beleive in women breast feeding their children for longer than a couple weeks. There are nutrients in the mothers milk which is better for the first stages of developemnt for a child, whether good genetics or bad. Feeding a snake a pinky with low nutritional value will hurt the growth of the snake whether good genetics or not.
Of cousre some people , like snakes, have good genes and will thrive under the worst of nutritional circumstances until their bodies mature and then they kick into overdrive.
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It is not simply temps but nutritional value - bluerosy, Fri Sep 30 22:39:45 2005