Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Looking through an article in Reptiles mag I noticed a segment in an article titled the Silver Spoon Hypothesis. The subject was water pythons but it did mention what I and a few of my fellow breeders already think as far as how important the first year of a snakes life is for growth.

The experiment took in a large number of gravid females, they were kept til they laid their eggs. They incubated and hatched the eggs and released the snakes back into the wild. They found that snakes released during good years with lots of rainfall and abundant food grew fast and more importantly continued to grow fast throughout their lives. Snakes born during bad years grew very slowly and and remained that way, growing slow even when good years followed.

It went on to say snakes born during good years had a head start and are able to attain much larger body sizes. This idea may have direct implications for herpetoculture. It implies captive snakes may/will only get really big if they are fed well during their first year or so of life.

Also, keep in mind if you obtain an adult snake that was not fed well as a juvenile do not expect it to grow very fast no matter how much you try to feed it.

The article was looking at this from a perspective that python breeders who do not want a maximum sized snake should keep this in mind to influence the snakes to not grow as huge as they potentially can, but many of us colubrid breeders want our snakes as huge as possible.

Some of us have taken criticism over the way we feed our snakes. It really doesn't bother me too much but I have seen things pointed out by this article many times over the few years I have been breeding. This is why I say do not buy adult snakes for breeders from people you do not really know, and also if your baby Kings are eating like pigs and growing like weeds do not let up! Just keep pumping them up, it means you have a winner.

Power feeding is such an overblown subject as is inbreeding. Things like this apparently do happen in nature and there's nothing wrong with letting your snakes grow to their fullest potential. I think it is best for everyone to understand this since in essence it may make better pets for everyone in the future if you let the snakes do what they want to do,,,,,,eat! Not all will gorge themselves, and that does not mean you have a crummy snake. However if you provide your snakes with what they need to thrive, and then follow up with doing the same for babies you produce from them, well in my opinion you are offering the best snake a person can hope for.

The article was from Ocotber 2004 and was authored by Robert N. Reed. I did not take it word for word...just used pieces that apply to readers of this forum. Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

Sounds great, thanks for the info.
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South Texas Herps

Good post Tom. I've always understood that a snake's growth potential decreases as it ages. If is is to reach its max size potetial it's first years have to be "fat" ones. That said from the herpetocultural perspective I don't think big always equates to most productive over the long haul. In my limited experience, smallish females (not stunted but not huge either) do yield smaller clutches but also tend to have longer reproductive lives.

I know what you mean Tony, but the thing is for me I try to view every snake as an individual. I won't say one is any better than the other if they're not identical in their growth or reproductive patterns.

One of my points was if you have a snake that wants to eat a lot and is growing rapidly go with it and feed that sucker. Some do not do this and leave the snake constantly hungry even though they know it will eat more, it is just something I don't understand. I think forcing them to grow slower also can be problematic.

Since someone actually conducted an experiment and posted the results I thought I'd mention it on here. I saw similar results here with snakes I bought and produced, but as we all have our views on forums like these some people just won't even try feeding a snake any more than some set pattern as if it is a bad thing? Maybe this post will give food for thought. Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

The problem is this. Most here have a very limited range of usable temps. Most are undermetabolized. That is, they do not have the ability to use lots of energy so they store it as fat.

Its these reptiles that do not grow long and thin, but instead grow short and fat, that have the problems. They are the ones that do not live all that long. They should not be mistaken for a "normal" snake. As I have said a BaZILLION times, normal growth is growing long and thin, then bulking up upon sexual maturity. Fat baby snakes are indication of substandard conditions. Snakes are not feeding on cookies and donuts.

So saying feed them as much as they want is great if your temps are right and the reptiles are using that energy properly. But is the temps or temp range is not suitable, then problems will occur.

Its my belief that its these folks, the ones with substandard conditions, that coin and use the term "power feeding" as their animals cannot physically use the food, so they have no understanding of what animals with choices can do. Cheers

Frank, you know I have learned a thing or two from you and I am grateful. Whenever I see a snake in my collection do something most would consider unusual I recall things you have said and know you have said it all a kabillion times. I will still be glad you say it when you say it again for a kabillion and first time again.

Along the lines of other things discussed or better said argued over on this forum, I have a few snakes that will be tested this year. One is a very slow growing Honduran Milk, I purchased it at a discount as a flawed animal [lesson learned...doubt I'd do this again}. It is a few years old now and is barely 3 foot long. I am not cooling it as I normally would but have it in a container long enough to offer a substantial gradient. I am also feeding it through winter, not too much but it is eating. It just ate a week ago and instead of choosing a hide on the cool side or a hide on the hot spot it chose to stay right out in the open in the middle of the cage. This is a nervous flighty snake that hates me, yet it must feel it is most comfortable at that particulr temp and it stayed there til it felt like going somehwere else a few days later. Most of us would have guessed it would chose the warm hide.

Hopefully when I move it to a more suitable even larger container this spring for breeding it has enough choices to go through all the cycles and produce a clutch of eggs. I am going to change my room around again as I have more snakes than ever now and as you may guess there will be plenty of nice long cages and containers. I figured long ago that this was something that really helped my snakes thrive, that ever important difference in temperature from one side of the cage to the other. You practically need to wear a jacket in ym snake room in summer, as if there's no cold side....well then there's no gradient. Thanks for posting, your comments are always appreciated Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

about your assumption. You stated that for you larger females do not live as long a productive life. While I believe thats "your" experience, its surely not mine.

There are good reasons for that. You have your own unique set of repeatable conditions and your own relm of temp choices. Mine are surely different then yours. And sure as heck, natures is much much wider then either of ours.

For instance, husbandry is not husbandry. You may buy mice. You buy X sizes. Did you allow a difference for each snake, or did you feed the snakes the same? Will a larger snake perform with the same amount of food as a smaller individual? No, it won't, its needs more food just to produce the same. How about temps, do you allow a larger female a different range of temps then you do a smaller individual? Do you think they can gain and lose temps in the same way? No they cannot. A smaller snake is far more efficient in gaining and loosing heat.

In nature, a larger snake has different behaviors then a smaller individual to do the same task. greater mass is more consistant, then lesser mass.

The problem with keepers is, they attribute a snakes results to the snake and not the conditions the snake was boxed in. I believe your results are directly related to your boxes.

My own personal opinion is, in nature, a species of snakes reproductive stradgy is dependant on both large and small adult females. It allows for a broader range of success over a long period of time. What happens in captivity is dependant on what the keeper allows. Most(successful) keepers do not allow for much of a choice, they mostly allow a very good average. But not a very good test of potential.

The first question you should ask about your own results is, how did you effect them. Cheers

It was a simple statement true only for conditions as they prevail in my collection. I generally keep my animals on temp gradients that are on the cooler side and generally feed what I consider appropriately sized food once a week. On this program I raise thayeri to breeding size in 27 not 18 months. I get about 8 eggs per clutch not the 12+ some have reported to me. My stock also generally does not double clutch which is something I do not desire to happen and I can easily expect one of my females to still be going strong after 10+ breeding seasons.

I don’t know if this is optimal or not but, as a hobbyist/breeder I’m happy with this level of production and there are other elements that I consider. Number one is time. Like everyone else, I have 24 hours in a day and 7 days a week and only so much of this can de dedicated to my animals. I could keep temps higher and feed more often but them I’d have less time to clean their cages and sanitize water bowls. I’d likely produce more neonates but I’d have less time per neonate to provide them care they need before they are sold.

It’s a simple matter of balancing what is right for me, my animals and my customers and is not meant to disparage those who power feed. If done correctly, “power feeding” is not an unhealthy method.

That said if I were to advise people I would tell them that:

If your animals are thin and cruising their cages looking for food you are either:
a. feeding too little or
b. keeping your temps too high or
c. not providing a proper temp gradient or
d. some combination of the above

If your animals are cage lazy and fat you are either:
a. feeding too much or
b. keeping temps too low or
c. not providing a proper temp gradient or
d. some combination of the above

That is an interesting data set, but I have two comments.

1. The study did not state how much or often the snakes ate, just that food was not the limiting factor in their growth. You don't know whether those snakes were eating every 3 days or every two weeks in their first year. You also don't know the size of the food items they were taking. I suspect captive powerfeeding exceeds the amounts of food taken in by those wild snakes and those wild snakes were a heck of a lot more active than captive animals. So the activity:calorie ratio might be much lower in captive snakes. How does that influence the data?

2. Even if this data does transfer over to the feeding of captive snakes, there are still lots of well documented data that suggest that individuals that eat to excess die younger than those who are on calorie restricted diets. So the data together tell you that you will get big snakes that die younger.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Hi Chris.If I am not mistaken the snakes that were studied...the water pythons....they gorge themselves when food is abundant.I am asusming it was springtime when the rats would reproduce, and when they were plentiful the snakes fed heavily. I saw a show about them on TV once. It showed tons of these large Pythons everywhere with no visible food in sight. It was found the local rodent had huge intricate tunnels in abundance which is where their main food source was.

It also said [if I recall correctly] that the rats also had good and bad years depending on the rainfall amounts. This also affected the snakes.

I am conifdent my husbandry [which is definitely not perfect] allows my snakes to get a lot out of every rodent consumed and my snakes eat a lot more than average. If I am not mistaken you live in TX? I extend an invite to you any time to view my collection, and you will see none of my adults are fat. Not one. All look extremely fit, and it is somehting i am very proud of. I wish I could say the same for myself but man I love pizza and beer. Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

If I am correct, your talking about Rick Shines study at Fogg damn. Been there done that.

To clear in up a little, there is no spring in that area, its very close to the Equator. Its seasons are wet and dry. And everything is based on the wet.

He once mentioned they found gravid 9 month old females. I believe he mentioned he was lucky enough to include a very dry year and rats(rice rats) were scarce. The snakes then utilized birds as their prime food source. They can also use fruit bat rookeries as well.

In this area, water pythons are extremely prolific and abundant, in other areas they are not. That is very much the point. Snakes utilize a varity of strategies to exsist. From bust to boom. From colonies to solitary are all normal and of value.

Its at times considered that populations of large adults is good. Its not. Large adults can survive longer periods of suboptimal conditions(in nature, not in captivity) and rarely produce. But because of their size, they are more stable from predators. So you can see, they can maintain an exsistance until good productive conditions return to that area.

In nature, all populations have a age and purpose, it takes all these strategies and more to exsist over long periods of time. Yet in captivity your judging one condition and that one condition has little to do with those snakes. Your(most keepers) shoe box(or any box) is not what they are adapted for. I wonder what a snake would be like that actually was adapted for a shoe box?

The key here is what I and Tom are doing. Keep changing the shoe box(any box) to explore the relm of potentials of these wonderful animals.

What is silly and naive to me is, how most here "do the same thing and expect different results" If you want to see different results, then you have got to do something different.

A reptile is an animal that exsists in conditions from instant death to super prosperous. Its works those conditions the best it can to exsist. What the reptiles does is constantly changing to a point of becoming a different species(over time)

Thats why it kills me to see a nice person put a snake in a box, feed it a consistant sized mouse, keep it at a narrow range of temps and humidity, give it absolutely no choices to make and SAY, this is what this snake is. How very very naive.

To compare how simplistic that is, its like a person sticking a brush in paint and making a mark on paper and calling that art. Putting a mark on paper is not art, its a mark on paper, if done really really well, it could be art. But then its very common for anyone who puts marks on paper to call themselves artists. Again, that is human, and not about animals.

If keepers would allow their charges to actually make choices like they do on a consistant basis in nature, you may start to see the art in these animals. Until then you folks with shoe boxes and narrow controlled conditions are only making marks. Cheers

One issue we seem to be overlooking here is diversity. Yes, this may be true in Water Pythons at Fogg Dam, but that doesn't mean it is true for other boids, or other families of snakes, or especially other orders of reptiles. We have a tendency as herp people to lump "herps" together implying that have the same physiological needs and adaptations.

If you compare the differences between the metabolic needs/adaptations of even closely related mammals, we see that there are major differences. Yet we imply that data from one reptiles applies to all other reptiles?

Hi Chris.If I am not mistaken the snakes that were studied...the water pythons....they gorge themselves when food is abundant.I am asusming it was springtime when the rats would reproduce, and when they were plentiful the snakes fed heavily.

This is an important point. The reason all species are different is that all species are adapted to different environmental pressures. So fuscus at Fogg Dam are adapted to (like many Australian species) feast or famine. They have to have a physiology capable of incorporating large amounts of nutrients when they are available and then surviving many months when there isn't no food available.

Other species of snake (Natricines, for example) might not be able to survive those extremes of nutrient availability. Yes, some species might, but I suspect others wouldn't. Could a Ribbon Snake eat enough in 2 months to sustain it for another year in a climate that doesn't get cold? I doubt it.

As for all the good data people are posting, let me add some more contrary data.

I bred African House Snakes (from Tanzanian parents) for years. I gave/sold babies to friends and other people. I heard back from more than a few of those people that their females were dying at a little over 1 year of age. However, those people had all powerfed (small meals 3-4 times per week) in an effort to see how quickly they could get them breeding. Males would breed at about 6 months and females at around 8-9 months (or earlier). All of those females would lay 1-2 clutches of eggs and die at around 1.5 years.
I fed females more slowly, and didn't breed them until they were at least 2 years old and 30" long and I had females live for over 10 years (and sold them as healthy breeder females). I'm sure many of them are pumping out eggs still at around 20 years.

So just because Water Pythons, some kingsnakes, some monitors can tolerate this doesn't mean all herps are adapted to the same metabolic lifestyle.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Chris, I read your posts on other forums and think your a smart guy and agree wiht a lot of what you have to say. However one thing that you may have overlooked was this is the Kingsnake forum so I am referring to Kingsnakes, not all snakes. I will admit I do feed many of snakes heavily but I mostly work with getula and Pituophis.

There will always be exceptions to the rule or especially exceptions to any point made on any forum but I really didn't want to take it that far. I was just referring some data collected to people who read this forum as I saw a direct comparison to an often discussed subject...and that is feeding and growth rate.

I have an article about how I feed my snakes on my web site, and I was sure to mention that just because I do it people should not start stuffing their snakes full of food til they're bloated sausages. I just think along the lines of Frank, and I experimented til I found what works well for me.

The thing I excluded from the article was that the phenomenon hasn't been shown to hold for other WILD snake populations as of yet. That is because I don't pay too much attention to what wild snakes do. My snakes are all captive born and live in my snake room ya know? So it is only so relevant. Most discussions here pertain to captive snakes...so I left that part out.

Know the only snake ever to become eggbound in my collection was a 4 or 5 year old female that was "grown slow and steady" and many people will take that route. It was only one snake....so I do not go around saying growing them slow is bad...but in my experience my way works great. To clarify I can only speak with experience [and not all that much] about Florida Kings, Mexican Blacks, and other crosses. These snakes can grow extremely fast, I have had them hit 1000 grams in a year or so many times. I also tell people if their snakes do not grow this fast there's nothing wrong with that either. Just wanted to share a little insight from another persons perspective as the article itself was about a two week herp trip to Australia. I did think what he said about this hypothesis applied to many Kings and that's why I started the thread. Take it easy Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

I would have to agree with you on this topic. Snakes(and other animal's) metabolisms, and tactics(like you stated) vary widely depending on the species and type of environment they are suited for.....Evolution being the ultimate judge in the trials of them all!.......best regards,.......................Doug
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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

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TomsSnakes.com

All I can tell you is, People told me that, and they were WRONG, not just wrong, but so way wrong.

I had these same arguements 40 years ago. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. My over fed over producing snakes lived longer then their smaller far less producing counterparts.

Now, I an doing the same thing with monitors, and of course the same old arguements. Only again a funny thing happened on the way to that forum, I have already passed many species longevity records and I am new at varanids. Also multi-clutching. People here complain about that. Yet I have monitors produce up to 15 clutches a year, and they live longer then these non power feeding counterparts. How funny is that. an Example is, I have a female monitor I hatched 9 years ago, she has had 65 clutches so far and is still going. Now to put that into prespective. Most zoos have not produced 65 varanid clutches in their entire history. And, they rarely have a monitor live ten years. Hmmmmmmmmmm I say.

Also your understanding of what snakes do in nature should not be based on captivity. When snakes are hungry in nature, they go eat. Period. They do not wait for someone to bring them food. If prey is abundant, and in many cases its very abundant, they feed several times a day. Remember, they are not confined to a limited heat range or a human schedule.

Again people confuse captive food budjeting with nature. Natural snakes feed very heavily for periods of time, like from days to a couple of months, then conserve energy until the next feeding period, then do the same. Then they may or may not conserve energy over a winter or dry season. Then feed heavily again.

Of course, if the natural conditions are substandard, such as in drough, they cannot do this and are subject to failure. Normally they go down and conserve energy as long as they can. If these bad times exceed the their ability to use conserved energy, they fail.

Both full reproductive and growth potential and failure is NORMAL. What is not normal is feeding once a week over the entire spring summer fall, or even twice a week or three times during that period.

Being a reptile, they get while the gettin is good, then conserve. Sir, that is the difinition and prime gift of a reptile. Feeding on a schedule is not about being a reptile. As is a narrow temp range, those two things are meant for mammals. Cheers

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>> Both full reproductive and growth potential and failure is NORMAL. What is not normal is feeding once a week over the entire spring summer fall, or even twice a week or three times during that period.
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>> Being a reptile, they get while the gettin is good, then conserve. Sir, that is the difinition and prime gift of a reptile. Feeding on a schedule is not about being a reptile. As is a narrow temp range, those two things are meant for mammals. Cheers

I had a corn snake (got him back before a lot of the problems of inbreeding started taking hold as you see now a days). He was a pig. He didn't have an 'off switch' when it came to food. back then, I didn't know about what 'power feeding' was and would feed him quite often... heck he'd be happy to scarf food down when his eyes would be clouded over from shed. When he was a baby it wasn't unusual for him to chow down an entire litter of pinky mice in one feeding. He more or less grew twice as fast as he ideally should have. By the time he was 18 months old, you couldn't really tell him apart from a corn that was 3 years old.

At work we had another corn snake. She was fed sparingly in the previous owner's possession. She came to us 5 years old and full grown. My corn snake was easily twice her size and he was 2 years younger than her. In all the time we've had her at work, she has been fed sparingly. A mouse here one week, a mouse or two a few weeks later. At work, I have no set schedule as to when to feed or how much is fed at a feeding for the snakes there. It's whenever I am inclined to and whenever I remember to. Sometimes that means they might get fed 2-3 weeks in a row, sometimes it might mean they go 4-6 weeks between feedings.

The only thing really different between the two corns was how they were fed. Activity levels, environmental conditions and what not were pretty much the same.

The results. My corn snake died at 10 years of age.. just shy of his 11th year. He suddenly couldn't keep any weight on even with all that he ate. He wasted away and died. The other corn snake.. she has darkened in color with age but is still going strong. She'll be 19 years old in a couple of months.
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PHWyvern

Be carefullabout extrapolating to much from any individual. Each snake is different, occassionally they are wierd.

For example, my first kingsnake was purchased over 14 years ago. I was young and followed care sheet directions in terms of feeding. He got one appropriately sized rodent per week. He had a wide temp gradient. Today at 5 1/2 feet long he is the largest cal king that I have ever seen. For many years this lead me to believe that these "power feeders" were absolutely crazy. However as my collection has grown and I attempted to duplicate those results I found I couldn't. Maybe he was just genetically bigger. But I now know that most snakes will grow better with more food and proper temps then with less.

If I had only had that one snake my whole life I would still be here argueing with FR to the death.

We have to look at the population as a whole.

Do you really know why it died?????? Did you have a necropsy done(not that they are all that accurate) Or are you simply guessing and appling the cause you want?

No doubt your snake died young. I ask how many snakes die young that are not fed like yours, you know what you think is normal. I would guess thousands. I then ask, why not use any one of them for your comparison???

As the inventor of feeding hungry snakes(power feeding) The normal multiclutch female, produced several clutches as year for Aprox, 18 years, then became hit and miss, then lived as long as I bother to keep them alive. The longest was 35 years.

Please consider, I did lose others for an assortment of mistakes I made/make. What I find odd is, people think i may be egotistical, yet I always am making mistakes, and these people, like you, refuse to look at that animal as a mistake you made, but instead blame it on something easy.

Now consider, all it takes to break your theory is, one exception. Then you have explaining to do. I and Tom have lots of exceptions to your theory. Start explaining.

As I mentioned to Tom, without question if your animals do not have the ability to use larger amounts of food(under metabolized) They will fail. But if they have the ability to use their food, they live very normal lifes.

Keep in mind, underfed under metabolized snakes also fail. Also keep in mind, 99% of captive snakes fail for reasons other then so called power feeding.

The truth is, your snake died, your at fault. If your curious, you should have found out why. They do some testing. If you had repeated and consistant failures, then and only then could you actually place blame. What your doing is, more or less, pigeonholing. Your simply placing blame in an area, because you want to.

Of course, I tested feeding hungry snakes, over hundreds and hundreds. Had no problems and lots and lots of benefits doing so. Of course, I have a brain and I use it(I may not be all that smart, but I do use what smarts I have). I am constantly adjusting husbandry according to the results. If a snake is getting fat and not growing long, I increase the temp range. If its an old male and cannot burn off excess energy, I of course do not feed it so dang much. etc etc. Small easy decisions and common sense too.

Some examples I recieved thirty or more years ago. I accidently raised a cal king to 37 inches in one year. I fed it every time it came out for food(almost everytime) I did not know, my wife did too. hahahahahahahaha.

I had three 18 month old female Blairs, produce 66 babies in one year. That same year, I have three 18 month old calkings produce 99 babies in one year. All six had two large perfect clutches each. All these individuals when on to live long productive lifes. Of note, I did not count eggs, but hatched babies that lived.

I was proud of those snakes, they put forth a tremedous reproductive effort. As for me, I only supported their effort. Think about this last paragraph. You only support what they do. Why do you hold off support?????????? I find that question entertaining. Cheers

Owww...my head hurts....

Sorry for the headacke, but as you know, my posts on kingsnakes is information gathered for over 42 years of keeping, breeding and field work. So theres a lot of little hidden stuff in there.

What totally baffles me is, PEOPLE have absolutely no faith in the snakes(monitors, torts, chams, etc) They feel they are the source of the snakes success, you make the snake do what you want. You also think you are the one with success. WRONG, you only allow the snake to do what it already knows how to do. ITS SMARTER THEN YOU(not you, but these keepers)

You know whats so silly about that? these snakes have been doing what they do successfully for millions of years, since man was a monkey. They have been doing it before and thru ice ages, they have been doing it while continents collided. They do it now in vacant lots, in trash piles, in oil fields(when I was a kid I caught lots of kings in oil fields covered in crude, no problems mate) They do it in old brick buildings in cities(milksnakes in New Orleans), They have been doing this in all manner of boxes, up to and including plastic shoe boxes. WOW, them is some versatile beasts. And some people think they have to TELL the snake what to do?????????????????? I do question that.

Yes I question the intelligence of people who think they know more then these snakes. These snakes are a product of millions of years of inherented education. These people are a product of a very poor education system. I question those who tell snakes what to do, instead of ask them what they do and/or support them with what THEY do. The truth is, your not an inventor, your a mere servant. You are only suppose to support the snake in what it does, not tell it what to do. As Donald would say, YOUR FIRED.

All I can think is, people are highly narcissistic(all about themselves). I am glad I am me. I enjoy snakes for being snakes, and not for what people make them out to be(under their tight narrow control). How on earth can you think your box represents nature???????? dang, that baffles me.

All in all, these keepers appear to be much like an ant. You know, feel the need to follow eachothers scent trail(up to a horned lizard) then actually thinking for themselves. Cheers

Thanks Frank. I'm trying to grasp it.

Yes I question the intelligence of people who think they know more then these snakes. These snakes are a product of millions of years of inherented education. These people are a product of a very poor education system.

I'm going to have to save this one. LOL! I might have to use it for a quote someday. Super funny, but true!
-Phil

All in all, these keepers appear to be much like an ant. You know, feel the need to follow eachothers scent trail(up to a horned lizard) then actually thinking for themselves.

Have you ever gone fishing and you see 20 boats gathered around one sandbar. In the middle of all that mess, you'll see one boat catching fish, he's obviously done his homework and knows what bait or lures to use. He soon tires of all the jerks banging into his line and boat and takes of to another spot, where again, the same process starts over. This happens in our hobby too, both in field herping and captive care methods. It's the old mob method. I've actually been a victim of it myself, until I learned to think on my own, and I still make mistakes, but atleast there not the same ones that somebody else has already made. Human phsychology, It's a scary thing!
-Phil

There's a zoo in the United States which holds a number of longevity records for snakes (I can't remember which one). When asked what their secret was, the reptile curator would say "I keep them lean."

While this may work well for getting a longer life out of a snake, when the reptile is in a breeding program, you have to feed it accordingly.

I've noticed that some snakes eat food and get fat, while others either grow or "burn up" the calories through metabolism. I agree with Tom 100% in that the best keepers/breeders are "tuned in" to each individual snake in their collection and feeding their animals according to how much they utilize the food that is offered - rather than keeping them on a standard once-a-week feeding schedule.

Tim

I almost feel that I am not qualified to even take part in this debate. I just reached double digit years in husbandry mostly with corns and kings. One thing I have noticed is that very rarely do I feed all of my snakes on the same day or the same amount. I never payed much attention to why. If my 6 month old corn was out and about exploring his cage then I fed him period. He is much larger than 2 of his siblings that I have and is the most active as well. If another was staying hidden I would offer food and sometimes it would eat and sometimes not. But almost always if it was out and about it would eat. I let them tell me when to feed them by observing their activity. With some adults it may be 1,2 or even 3 times a week for a while but then change to once a week for a while based on when I see them "exploring" or maybe it is hunting. I figured if they are hunting then they want to eat so I let them eat.
My 05 corn grew to 3 ft in 12 months and is still one of my most active snakes and does not look a bit over weight. I have learned to become in tune to each individual snake just like I do to each individual child (4 of them) at home. My experiences are based on the 12 corns, 4 kings and 2 rat snakes in my collection so obviously my observations are limited as compared to others on this forum.

My focus has always been to raise my snakes slow and steady and this has worked for my snakes whick are mainly boas and kings. This is just what I have been taught. Your point does raise an interesting idea and your success is undeniable. So if someone were wanting to adapt your principles could you write out a typical feeding regimen for your kings and pits from birth to adulthood?

Thanks,
Dan

Yes I can, and I did. It is already on my site which is listed at the bottom of every post I write. I may add some more to that article, as it is hard to really pin down things without people misunderstanding why I feel I have had success this way. It really does count on husbandry. There are also things I can not explain, such as why do 20 baby Brooksi all thrive in 6 quart boxes but 1 from the same clutch refuses to feed?

One thing i have to ad to my article concerning Pits is I feel the babies should not be fed much at all until they put some considerabel size on, however that usually happens very quickly anyway. The article I wrote also focuses on smaller sized rodents in quantity as opposed to large rodents. I do this most of the year, but after females are done laying eggs I do occasionally offer them rats instead.

My main point of this post was to bring the point that some people feel the first year of a snakes life can be most infuential for growth depending on how you feed them. Some of my snakes ate 125 rodents in 12 months...maybe more which of course began with pinkies and worked up to adult mice, and grew unbelievably fast. Some think this method is wrong, and I totally disagree, and of course I have to mention there are exceptions but I feel many Kings are capable of this. None of mine are lethargic or obese and the only snake I own that has fat deposits is my breeder Black King which was my fault due to panicking after seeing her look like a deflated tire after laying a second large clutch. I offered her a few rats and that seemed ot bring the fat deposits on.

I have had Southern Pines hit about 4 foot in a year many times. I just visited one of my customers [who is one of my best friends] and he showed me one of last years Southern Pines that he bought. It is almost breeding size already and he doesn't feed quite as heavily as I do. It is when snakes grow slow that I scratch my head and wonder why? I think nature would have preferred them to grow fast so they hunt instead of become the hunted. Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

I have not worked with Boas, but I have heard many times over that slow and steady is more appropriate for them. I have heard many people recommend a minimum of 3-5 years for females, and like colubrids males can breed a lot smaller and younger.
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com