Reptile & Amphibian Forums

HELLO
I havent understand wahts that.
THANKS

The basics of power feeding a snake are giving it as much food as it can eat in a short amount of time.

For example:
Giving a young retic one or two rats everyday.

That is of course the extreme version of powering feeding but you get the idea.
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Christine
Tails With Scales Reptiles
Looks, brains, and venom . . . . how do I stay single?

Power feeding is a malignant practice which involves feeding the snake as much as it will eat with the hopes of getting it to reproductive size as quickly as possible, often even before 18 months. A more appropriate feeding regimen will grow most pythons to adult size in 3 to 5 years. Snakes are not "wired" for excessive food intake, it also causes their heads to have a pin headed appearance when compared to normally fed burms of the same length. This ( power feeding )often causes problems with fertility and the number of fertile eggs laid for first time females. I also believe it shortens the life span of the animal. Snakes are not meant to be in a state of constant digestion. It takes resources away from the snake reserves to completely digest a meal. It also puts on what I would call "bad weight" . Which in turn makes the snake more susceptible to infection (IE.. RI). Muscle tone is often compromised as well. Often the snake doesn't get to completely digest and expel (waste from food) before it is fed again. It is a not fair to the snake involved, for we control their food intake. Most importantly, in my opinion, is it kills them prematurely. Burmese Pythons, Reticulated pythons, and some others are not living to their life expectancy ( for some snakes this is up 30 years), old time keepers with large older pythons did not get them to this size and age by constantly feeding them and then practically breeding them to an early grave. All these processes need "fuel" to be completed, but over feeding them is not the way to go. Also sometimes power fed snakes are too "fat" and "lethargic" to successfully breed. It's a self defeating husbandry practice. Don't do it if you really care about your snake and or it's longevity. Snakes have been around a long time and studies show we as herpetoculturists feed our "charges" ( study animals) a lot more than they would normally subdue and consume in the wild. Some ( Wild Type )get as little as 3 or four good sized meals a year, with power feeding, well they would be fed several times a week. I do believe neonates need a lot more food early on to grow themselves as fast as possible in the environment to avoid being predated upon. Once the snake reaches sub-adult length, food intake should be curtailed to every 3 weeks, depending on the type of snake, some every two weeks, as neonates once weekly usualy works well.
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

I dunno i kinda think its a degree thing. Obviously if you feed your snake too much it becomes fat lethargic etc we've all see those big burms thats are WAAAY to fat for their own good. .

When i think of real power feeding i think of giving the snake smaller meals more often and increasing the heat in the cage (for higher metabolism) im not talking once every other day, but maybe instead of feeding a large/medium rat once a week, you do a small rat twice a week with 2-4* higher cage temps..
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Russ
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (Apollo)
1.0 Columbian Rainbow Boa (Odin)
1.0 Guyana Red-Tail Boa (Ares)
0.1 Pastel Salmon Boa (Minerva)
0.1 Rosy Boa (Athena)

Melbourne, Fl

THAN
So, that means that the clue isto avoid overweigth.
And that normally burms and retics reach their adult size in 3-5 years. (for burms that means 15-16feet and for retics 16-20 feet, is that rigth?).
Do you have pictures of obese snakes?
THANKS AGAIN

Female Burms can certainly get larger then 16' and Female Retics can certainly get bigger then 20'
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Russ
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (Apollo)
1.0 Columbian Rainbow Boa (Odin)
1.0 Guyana Red-Tail Boa (Ares)
0.1 Pastel Salmon Boa (Minerva)
0.1 Rosy Boa (Athena)

Melbourne, Fl

THANKS
I was talking about avarage measures.

I would of NEVER guessed..