Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Reading the below post which mentions feeding 3-4 times per week a few questions come to mind. This basically works out to a meal every other day so obviously this must be a very small meal. Would this be 1 appropriately sized mouse and no more for each meal? Do you find a balance where if feeding doesn't happen 2 days later you use a smaller mouse next time and continue until your snake eats every other day?

Also can younger snakes handle this much food or would this type of feeding routine be more so for a larger snake. To me a hatchling couldn't handle this routine but an adult could. Is there a rough age/size when you can increase feeding to this extreme or can it be done from a very young age if done properly?

I can picture some of my larger ones handling an adult-m./sub-adult-m./rat-pup every other day but it just seems to be too much for the smaller ones (about 6 months old) to eat a fuzzy eevery other day. And a pinky every other day would seem pointless. [Also I don't think ALL of my larger milks would be interested in a small meal every other day but that could have to do with my previous post and poor preservation of the mice. This may be another topic which I will work on]

I guess the only other thing that comes to mind is: Isn't this a CRAZY amount of work to keep up with when you consider records, cleaning, rejected food, possible regurg.... Is this more of a technique for somebody who can work on this full time as apposed to a side-job??? This is one of the parts that gets me .. although I can see this adapting into an easier routine with some hard work in the begining.

A snake needs a good 3 days to digest, so you should go with the standard "one appropriately sized food item every 5-7 days" for a neonate (I go 6-8) and every 7-10 days for a well-established snake.

"Appropriate" means no more than 1.5 times the size of the widest part of the snake's body.

Walt

... not my milk snake (my daughter's corn), but you get the idea.

Thanks for the pics ..

I have been doing a 5-7 day schedule and it seems to work good for me. Also I just keep an ambient room temp of 80-84 celcuis with the odd cooler nights so I don't think I can rush any more than 3-4 day intervals at max. I have no real plans to change anything I was just curious because I have heard from a couple places now about the 3 or more times a week method.

Anybody else have any comments they would like to add?

Tell me what heat source you're using!!! I'd stick to a 2x a week at most feeding schedule.

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Matt from Minnesota

I think it was a typo...they meant Fahrenheit.

If you go by the Bob/Doug McKenzie theory, you double-it and add 30, so 80C would be about 190F.

It's really 9/5 * F 32, but their rough estimate works for most ambient temps. When you get higher, more error creeps in.
80C is actually 176F...

Walt

I did mean Fahrenheit .. thanks for the correction.

nc
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Matt from Minnesota

Bob Applegate feeds his Milks and Kings small meals 3 times a week. I bought 2 Striped Sinaloan babies from him and feed them every other day a tiny pink F/T. My Pueblans eat 2x a week, but they are bigger, Hondurans also eat 2x a week. I think to get your babies up to size quick, the every other day method is working great. Obviously if you have dozens or more snakes, this is a LOT of work.

"Lot of work" you can say that again. Then when you raise them up you don't want to sell them. You end up with snakes everywhere and your neighbor turns you in for snake hoarding!

HeHeHe just kidding!!
Dave

LOL...I have been to Bob's place and he is definitely "Hoarding" snakes, unreal the setup he has.

Scott