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I have noticed that burmese and african rock pythons digest meals much more quickly than reticulated pythons and felt that it was post-worthy. Burmese seem to break down and digest even a large meal in roughly 2 to 3 days and defecate it in as few as 5 or 6. Rock pythons seem to have an even more rapid digestive process than this. I commonly observe the lump from a large meal in a retic up to a week later and defecation is often nearly two weeks after the fact. It seems apparent to me that they require less food to thrive and grow, and one may accurately say that they are more "efficient" and thus cheaper to own. All three species can show comparable growth extremes, though the burmese do seem to grow a bit faster than the other two on average.

Does anyone else have any data to offer on this subject? I would be very interested to read it if so.

Note: The above data was noted under steady temps ranging between 86 and 92 degrees, though usually around 90. The food items was predominately rabbits, but rats showed the same results in younger specimens.
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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.]

Brian, those are very interesting observations and I will certainly not disagree with you. In my experience, and I keep many burms, one rock and have only raised 6 retics that I have had on a long term basis (and rescued many more), I have found that the retics have typically shown a higher metabolism in digesting prey; pretty strange eh? My retics are far more active, grow much faster and defecate much more often than my burms. This leads me to wonder what the optimal environment is for these giant constrictors. You maintain your large snakes at fairly constant temps (on the higher end) and have had good success. I typically provide a much larger temperature variance (78-80 cool side to mid to upper 80's warm side with a basking area reaching 90-95 deg F.) and perhaps that is why my observations are quite a bit different from your's. When I began looking at actual temperature readings from field research of burms and retics I was surprised to find out that in many cases these temperature readings taken where snakes were at rest were only in the mid to upper 70's and low 80's (despite coming from a very warm and tropical environment). That is why I prefer a wider temperature variance within each habitat so that I can give the snakes choices to decide on what is their optimal temperature for metabolism. So much to learn and so little that we really know about these magnificent animals!

Brian-

If you want good, hard data, you're going to have to wait. No one has ever fully investigated this question, but we're about to know... Like I said before, my entire project is comparing the digestive physiology and morphology of Burms, Retics, Rocks, Bloods, and Balls. I'm about to finish up the metabolic rates of digestion for the retics and rocks, but that is only part of the picture. It is going to be a couple weeks, but soon I will be able to report the metabolic increases upon feeding and how long it lasts for retics and rocks-this will be info that can be compared to previous work done on burms. So, in conclusion, no one really "knows" for sure-but I can tell you with some degree of certainty that retics are basically back to their fasting metabolic rates by 6-7 days after feeding. Give me some time and I can fill in the picture a little more with a larger sampling pool of retics and all of our rocks.
Have a good one!
~Brian Ott

>>Brian-
>>
>>If you want good, hard data, you're going to have to wait. No one has ever fully investigated this question, but we're about to know... Like I said before, my entire project is comparing the digestive physiology and morphology of Burms, Retics, Rocks, Bloods, and Balls. I'm about to finish up the metabolic rates of digestion for the retics and rocks, but that is only part of the picture. It is going to be a couple weeks, but soon I will be able to report the metabolic increases upon feeding and how long it lasts for retics and rocks-this will be info that can be compared to previous work done on burms. So, in conclusion, no one really "knows" for sure-but I can tell you with some degree of certainty that retics are basically back to their fasting metabolic rates by 6-7 days after feeding. Give me some time and I can fill in the picture a little more with a larger sampling pool of retics and all of our rocks.
>>Have a good one!
>>~Brian Ott
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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.]

Brian,
I am really interested in this area of study and just had a quick question out of curiosity about your project. How are you measuring the metabolic rates with this project? Is it calculated off of oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production or are you using another method. Just interested as to what type of setup you were using and your measurement techniques. Thanks,

Kelly

OOOhhhhh-I'm impressed!! We use a system called "closed system respirometry". We have them in small chambers(covered in tape so no light can get in) which are air-tight, except for an air-line going in and line going out. At morning and night, we take an air-sample and close off the chamber for X amount of time (18min-1.5 hr for pythons, depending where they are at in their digestive cycle). After the time is up, we pull a second air sample. Then we run the samples through an O2 and CO2 analyzer-so we get the amount of O2 and CO2 in the chambers, before and after we closed them. Eventually, after a bunch of equations and data entry, we get O2 consumed and CO2 produced, per hour, per gram of animal. The metabolic rates are then compared for individual animals while they are fasting and then while they are digesting. That's just for the metabolic work. We also measure nutrient uptake rates and gut morphology for fasted and fed snakes. Thanks for the interest!
~Brian Ott

Brian,
Sounds like you have a great study going. I haven't heard of any attempts at respirometry work on pythons in ages. I was interested if you were conducting runs at different temperatures or if you were using a "standard" control temperature for all your tests. Do you have an empty identical control unit with each of your runs? Also, are you using different size and age groups within each of the species in your study or are you using mostly adult pythons? Sorry for all the questions but I have a great interest in this area of study. Please let us know the results when you have completed the work. I would be surprized if the retics didn't show the highest metabolic rates out of your study group. Thanks,

Kelly

i totally diagree. I keep my snakes at 83-85 ambient with a 90 degrre basking spot. My biggest retics seems to digest a 6lber in 7 days and defecate at 10-12 later. This does sound like a interesting project though perhaps we could get some people together. Record data and swap it.

P.S. Disagree about burms, your so right about rocks there eating machines.