Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just heard a theory about snakes being fed larger sized food items to allow the head to grow. Now I have a question for all the breeders here, how true is this theory? I'm thinking the head would just grow naturally and feeding it bigger items would only strengthen the muscles. So what do the breeders have to say?
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1.0 Ball Python (Sultan)
0.1 California Kingsnake (Leota)
1.0 Eastern Painted Turtle (Yugi)
0.1 Red/Gold Bearded Dragon (Irwin, R.I.P.)

I haven't ever heard that hypothesis or seen any evidence that it makes any difference.

I do know there is data to suggest that powerfeeding snakes leads to pinheaded snakes. I don't think it has anything to do with the size of the food items, but the excessive feeding.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

You will not feed a snake into a disproportional larger head. Kingsnakes have small heads compared to some other snakes. A big overfed fat Goini, for example, might look like it’s head is even smaller because the proportion to big fat body is so distorted, but I don’t think it’s head is going to get bigger. I do know that if you feed multiple items, if the first is a big mouse that seems like it almost hurts sometimes the head seems to loosen up or whatever and the second seems to be a lot easier than the first. The head might be stretching and loosening up temporarily, but I don’t think you can permanently distort the head like your buddy’s theory would suggest.

I heard the same thing from Will Bird in reference to his carpet pythons. He said that he fed really large prey items after seeing the shots of a coastal eating a wallabee and he noticed a growth spurt of both head and overall size.

As a point I would mention that you need to have really good cageing to feed really large food items or you will get 3 day old food items in your cage .

I also heard mention of this from a different source but sort of dismissed it because of the source. With Will Bird I gave it a second chance and I have been asking others but I have been getting mixed results.

Later Jason

I guess I need to say first that individual specimens act individually based on genetics, conditions, and who knows what else!
It has been my experience that snakes who eat meals deemed way too large and are able to hold them down end up with larger heads than those fed multiple smaller meals. This may not manifest in the early years, in fact it probably won't at first. However, given long term observations, snakes that are fed larger meals over a long period end up with larger heads, especially if larger meals are offered all along AND later in life. This observation is with snakes in general and not kingsnake specific. Kings obviously eat other snakes, which are way bigger than rodent meals, but only in terms of stomach stretch and not jaw stretch...usually anyhow. Still, I have observed kings eating really big meals in captivity and in the wild especially.
Whatever folks! Argue away. Will