Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What do you think about daily feedings? Ya know, getting those females up to 6' in 18 months....

i have been keeping snakes for about 4 years this spring was my first season breeding (corn snakes)

i dont exactly have mine on a feeding schedule, my ball pythons especially.

my reason behind this is snakes in the wild go for long periods with out eating, the time they go "empty" has to have some benefits to it other wise they wouldnt be designed that way.

my baby snakes i feed once a week til they hit about 800 to 900 grams and start refusing, at that point i drop them down to every 10 days til they begin refusing again then to drop to 14 days....

i have noticed doing this my snake never refuse a meal, unless they are blue then some will still eat even blue.

i know this is not what is recommended, but it works for me and my snakes, and i think some empty time is good for them.

this is one of the worst things you can do for your boas health and well being. As the other poster said, they are designed to go a long time in between feedings, their systems aren't made to constantly digest food. I would also challenge you to find ANY species of animal that benefits from being grossly obese (which is what you would have on your hands).

I haven't been keeping boas long, only about 6 years. But I feed mine QUITE sparingly. About every 2-3 weeks max and sometimes I'll just get lazy and feed them every month and a half. I have EXTREMELY muscular animals that thrive in my care. I also just had a less than 6 foot BCC deliver 15 perfectly healthy babies with no slugs at 6 years old. I credit that success to slow, healthy growth. I would never in a million years have jeopardized her health at the chance to produce a few babies 4 years earlier. And a few babies is all you're likely to get as the experience of other breeders has shown that FAT boas tend to deliver a disproportionate number of slugs.

You're obviously going to do what you want, but if you care about the health and well being of your animal, then feed it the appropriate size meals at the appropriate intervals. And just keep one thing in mind... just because it WILL eat, doesn't mean it SHOULD.

jb
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Jonathan Brady
"Sarcasm is angers ugly cousin" -Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson) in "Anger Management".

I was totally looking for.. I kind of got blasted on the other forum when I said that daily feeding wasn't a good idea, while the people giving the advice to do it were getting a pat on the back.. I guess we're a different crowd.

He he I figured you were being sarcastic...

It is really sad how many people think power feeding will get them babies quicker...

A year ago I was looking at a few female albinos in a local classifieds here in California...one of them was 4'...I assumed it was a yearling or older...I almost fell out of my chair when the guy told me she was only 5 months old...

Really really sad...I doubt that animal will even make it past four years of age...
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Heather Martin
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Who would feed every day??????

i saw all of that.
being a "newbie" in their eyes i didnt respond.
i probably should have.
when i first got into snakes as big as what i have 4 years ago, learning what i could i was told to feed faithfully every week.
my snakes refused every week, when i got my one female and was told to keep offering her food each week and she refused after a month, i stopped offering as per advice from another breeder, i waited for 2 weeks and tried once again, nothing, waited 2 more weeks and she finally ate a mouse.......
for one whole year she ate mice, after her winter fast last year i offered a rat and she finally took it and has fed every 14 days with out skipping a beat.

i had a pair of wild caughts who at their previous home were refusing to eat, every week.... when i took them i waited 1 month and offered a small rat both snakes ate, 14 days later both snakes ate again...... and began to actually pick up their weight.

im not looking to make big money on my snakes, i have them for the sole purposed that i enjoy my animals and i like to learn what i can, i have various other animals also, and have kept iguanas before. it took me 4 years to get eggs from my corn snakes, i have 4 baby girl snakes at the moment i am raising.
if i never get another set of eggs or babies thats ok, because they are family to me first and foremost.

i am the one who has posted on here about the boa i took in that was abused, she was slammed in the top of the cage,severely dehydrated. i was told by many people to put her down she was pretty much useless... i have posted a few pics of this girl after being here 5 months and being cared for..... i might be a newbie, i might not ever produce another snake in my home.... but im proud to say i didnt give up on this snake and she turned out to be a beautiful snake.

this is what she looked like when she came here......notice her skin looks like paper, and notice the scarring on her head..

this is her first shed with me, notice the scaring on her head is gone, and her skin looks different.....

this was her 3rd she with me, notice the color change....

this is the fourth shed...

this is her feeding.....

That boa looks like the typical "Shed its colors" snake to me.
When they do that bad shed thing, they do produce as much melanin as they're able, to protect the damaged exposed dermis thats left.
jsc

I feed my snakes weekly...if they want it. I have a male kenyan sandboa that has eaten about 6 times a year for the last 10 years. Sometimes I miss a week or two. The rats I give them are probably smaller than what most would. You could probably feed them 2-3 without seeing a "bump" after feeding. I have a 9 footer that weighs about 30 lbs (15 years old), and two 7 footers that go about 12-15 lbs (5 years old).

I raise my own rats and its just not feasible to keep them until they are jumbo sized. By the time one is large enough to breed it is fed to a snake.
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Travis Rose
Lazy S Snake Ranch
(859) 582-7310
1.0 100% DH for Snow Boa
1.0 Hypo, 66% DH Moonglow Boa
0.1 Normal Common Boa
0.1 Circle Back Normal Boa
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3.2 Kenyans
0.0.17 baby kenyans
0.3 Dogs (1 Full Pitbull, 1 Pit/Husky, & 1 Bernese Mt. Dog cross)
0.3 Cats (1 fat, 1 old, and 1 insane)
0.1 Very understanding wife
1.0 Toddler (WC...still bites and musks)

As a newbie to the forum (though not the hobby), I hope people won't be offended if I offer my thoughts on this one.

Over on the Royal Python forums, a number of posters were getting quite defensive about the "heavy" feeding regime used by a big commercial breeder from whom many keepers had got their animals.

If someone is breeding snakes on a commercial scale, they are going to have a lot of animals pass through their hands. They'll see a range of different behaviors, and they'll devise methods of husbandry that suit the health and development of the snakes at large.

However, the chief motivation behind a commercial breeding program is profit. It's far more important to a commercial breeder that an animal stays healthy over a period of 5 or 6 years during which it might produce, say, 60 times its own value in offspring, than it is for that animals to stay lean, breed every few seasons and live 30 years.

I'm not aware of any controlled scientific studies into the effect of different feeding schedules on the health and longevity of snakes. However, there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence from keepers who say that when their animals are "power fed" in the first few years of life and encouraged to breed as soon as physically possible, their lifespan and fertility are compromised.

Snakes evolved to be opportunistic feeders because they couldn't be sure when the next meal would come along, and lots of species also go through prolonged periods of fasting as part of their natural cycle. And it's a fact that snakes fed on a "lean" regime, that more closely approximates the volume of food they might get in optimal wild conditions, grow to the maximum adult size, put on lots of muscle, have big litters and live a long time.

Giving these facts, it makes sense to be to hypothesise that there will be physiological consequences from exposing animals to a feeding regime in which food is almost always passing through them.

Again, I don't know if anyone's done the right kind of controlled tests, but here's a question. I know of several boas over 20 years old that have bred a handful of times and have been fed no more than once every 4-6 weeks since they reached 3 feet. But does anyone know of a power-fed female boid first bred at 2 years of age that has seen its 20th birthday?

Posted by: Conners at Fri Oct 26 04:18:52 2007 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ]

As a newbie to the forum (though not the hobby), I hope people won't be offended if I offer my thoughts on this one.

Over on the Royal Python forums, a number of posters were getting quite defensive about the "heavy" feeding regime used by a big commercial breeder from whom many keepers had got their animals.

If someone is breeding snakes on a commercial scale, they are going to have a lot of animals pass through their hands. They'll see a range of different behaviors, and they'll devise methods of husbandry that suit the health and development of the snakes at large.

However, the chief motivation behind a commercial breeding program is profit. It's far more important to a commercial breeder that an animal stays healthy over a period of 5 or 6 years during which it might produce, say, 60 times its own value in offspring, than it is for that animals to stay lean, breed every few seasons and live 30 years.

Hey conners, I am the so called COMMERCIAL SCALE BREEDER you are talking about, if you call keeping a few animals and selling some of the offspring to pay for your rat bill commercial and money hungry, you got some problems!!! It's cool you are a newbie but please the next time you try putting a post up like this try to atleast read the whole thread, if you did you would have read that it was a inside joke, and that Brad Boa guy isnt mean to his snakes LOL I mean I keep boas clean a bunch of boa cages without making a dime on them but that would be a COMMERCIAL SCALE BREEDER right?????? Conners good luck with all your animals I hope you have a good time here. Thanks Brad Boa

Hi Brad,

I wasn't having a go at any individuals, I was talking generally and using the debate on the Royals forum as leverage to make a point.

I would stand by my claim that there are commercial breeders out there who are far more concerned about profit than the long term welfare of individual animals, though I'm not for a minute suggesting you're one of them.

Cheers

Conners

...you are right though, I assumed the person they were talking about was such an "industrial scale" breeder, so I stand corrected on that point. Sorry for any offense.

Lets try this a different way. You get a female boa that is atleast 5 years old. say 7ft, but just thicker than a baseball. She has obviously done the majority of her growning in the earlier years. Now, what do you say to feeding her every, lets say 3-4 days, to get her up to a good body weight? I am curious to peoples thoughts on this. Simply playing devils advocate, but I think there cannot be the same comparisons drawn as doing this with a newborn.

Warren
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Dr Warren Booth
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology
3309 Gardner Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695-7613

I think there really shouldn't be a reason to feed a 7 foot adult every 3-4 days.

I think if they're fed adequately through out the year, they should have good weight. So, extra feeding shouldn't be needed.

If you're refering to fattening up a female that gave birth and you want breed her again....

There still shouldn't be any reason to feed them every 3-4 days. A 7-10 day feeding schedule will fatten them up just fine. It's just a matter of making sure there's 6 months of feeding time in between birth and rebreeding her. Most boas can regain any weight lost from breeding/birthing in 6 months of feeding. If a female gives birth late in the year, then she should just be given a year off. I think it's better to give them "time off" from breeding. If females are rushed, just to fatten them for breeding, there's a chance it could cause her problems.

I like to give my females a year off after giving birth, so mine have plenty of time to fatten up.
I do have a female that's ovulating now. She'd be due to give birth in late Feb. I might consider letting her go again next year, but it would still depend on how she looks when breeding season comes around again.

Speaking here only from my own limited personal experience of 3 litters total…
For one of my females, I waited until she was 6 yrs old to breed. She was healthy and strong. She gave birth in ’06 to 18 beautiful full term babies, no slugs and no stillborns. I’ve spent the last year slowly getting her back up to a healthy weight, feeding every 2-4 weeks. She gained back her weight fine without increasing the frequency of feedings or the prey size. I’m hoping to try her again this season for babies in ’08 simply because she is back to her robust self.

I spent 2-1/2 years getting my female albino back up to a good weight and I still plan to hold off another year before breeding her (she’s a ’98). When I got her, she was 4 yrs old, just over 6’ and well over 20lbs… big and fat. It’s obvious to me now that she was power-fed, especially when I look at old pictures of her, she had the fat wrinkled tail and was simply obese. I wanted to breed at that time and figured, “well she’s big enough”. She gave birth alright, but the babies were premature, she had 3 slugs, 8 stillborns and 8 babies of which only 2 survived. That was a horrible experience. She is now over 7’, good muscle tone and lost all the ‘fat wrinkles’, it just took her a long time to recover.

I don’t think there is any real good reason to feed so frequently, especially if the boa is already healthy. If we over-eat, we get fat, I would think the same would apply to boas, and I don’t think a fat boa is a healthy boa.
Of course I am of the ‘grow-em slow and stong’ group and none of my boas under 3 years of age are 6’.

-April
(just a pic of one of the babies that made it..)

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'There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."' -Rainshadow

Those are two very educated and concise answers and exactly what I was hoping to hear. I hear a lot of people that try to bred boas every year. Now, I have no problem with this if the female eats throughout gestation. For example, my adult het anerythristic sonoran female would eat weekly throughout gestation, albeit on a smaller than normal meal. After parturition you would not know she had given birth. She was in no way fat. AS a result, she bred for four years in a row that I tried her, without problems. Due to my move to the US I sold the pair before a 5th breeding season, but see no reason why she would not have gone again. She was at least 6 years old when I first bred her.
On the reverse of that, the orange pastel that gave birth to my June 07 het albino litter has not gained the weight back as quickly, however, I will not try and fatten her up quickly to get her breeding this coming season. I keep them on the same regime of 1 adult rat per week to 10 days for my adult female boas.

Excellent answers and its good to see the opinions of responsible keepers and breeders on this forum.

Warren
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Dr Warren Booth
North Carolina State University
Department of Entomology
3309 Gardner Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695-7613

This is my take:

I believe you can't overfeed a young Reptile. As long as they have access to the proper ( which most individuals don't know what proper is in regards to reptiles or cold blooded animals )temperatures in order to metabolize what they take in, they won't have any problems with being obese or other captive ailments. You might want to take a look at the new take in Varanid husbandry ( check/search the Monitor forum ). I've applied that to all my Reptiles and have had astronomical success. It's a very simple concept, but most people don't know how to apply it as it's so foreign to what is considered the norm. These animals are wired to binge when the conditions are right, and shut down when they need to. So if the captive conditions allow ( Again, proper temps, humidity, hydration, etc.), why not let the animal determine what it, and not the human keeper, needs as far as feeding and the like?

I think a lizard should be fed everyday. At least, they should be "offered" food everyday.

I have a trio of Leopard Geckos. I give them fresh food/water everyday and, if they're hungry/thirsty, they eat/drink. If they're not, they don't. I agree that lizards know what's best, as far as how much food/water they need.

As far as snake/boas...

Since boas can eat an item, many times larger, than a lizard could. I think boas shouldn't be offered food as often.

A boa can eat so much it might cause them to regurge. I realize that most reptiles are "opportunistic feeders", but they have to be, "in the wild". Meals are few and far between in the wild. In captivity they have access to "much larger" amounts of food. They have access to "much larger" food items. If you were to allow a boa, or any other snake, to decided how much food it needed....

Well, if you want to do it, you can. I'm glad it's working out for you.

For me, I'll stick to growing mine slowly and spacing their feedings out. It seems to be working pretty well for my boas.

BTW Nobody really knows how much snakes eat in the wild, but I'm sure it's no where near what they get in captivity.

Like i said in the original post, if the conditions allow, these animals will eat what they need and be able to process it with no issues ( I can't state enough " If conditions allow " ). So if I have a Boa that feeds and is hunting 3 days later, I'll feed it. I have a group of Hog Islands that only want to eat every 2 weeks. They eat and wont start looking for food untill 14 days later.Itcomes down to reading the animal, and giving the proper conditions to let the animal choose what it needs to do. Again, look into the new wave of Varanid husbandry, and apply it to Boas. The two groups paralell each other very closely. It is a complete 180 from the "norm", but it works and the individuals that have perfected it have been doing so for years. I'm not trying to convince anyone, try it for yourself and see what you come up with. It's a long term data gathering project for me, so in a few years I'll be able to come back with info to either back up or disprove what I'm doing. Simple as that

I agree with you and I agree with a couple of the other posts. My setup is very low tech. I generally feed from poop to poop. Sometimes more when its hot. The snakes start rubbing their noses when they want to get out and hunt. So I feed them. What other pleasure do they have as juveniles? Now things have cooled off. I'm hesitant to feed. If I do, it will be a smaller meal. Poop to poop for sure. I've got snakes growing. I've got females I'm trying to condition for breeding. I've got males I'm trying to keep lean. I've got snakes that like it a liitle warmer and I've got snakes that like it a little cooler.
Metabolisms and strategies that run the whole spectrum and I do it all in one overcrowded room with no racks or sophisticated temp. devices. Labor intensive low buget operation. You just gotta read the animals.
jsc

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.... When Rich Ihle started the Salmon project, he was "allowing" his female offspring to binge up to breeding size in 18 months... Now, I'm not exactly sure why, but he doesn't do that anymore... If its so natural and healthy for boas to grow that fast, why wouldn't he continue growing females like that? Don't quote me but I believe most of those females died or had some other type of unwanted problems. 5-6' and 2yrs old is the common practice for breeding females but my rule of thumb is a minimum of 6' and 3yrs old with a healthy weight for boas.. If you have a 5' female that's always eaten well and 4yrs old, it should be Ok to breed her because its impossible to know the lineage of a snake...

Before I made the switch to ball pythons I kept nice collection of boas. When I had boas I only fed them one food item every seven days. But ball pythons are alot different from boas. One big difference of boas from balls, is that boas are steady feeders and rarely refuse food. Ball pythons are finiky feeders so feeding them more than once a week is a good thing. One thing about balls you never know when they will stop feeding. So if you feed them a little more will ony help them maintain weight through the periods they decide to go off food.
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You're never gonna get me.........I'm the Crimson Ghost

TheCrimsonGhost, you are wrong. Not all ball pythons are finiky eaters. Some are, but most of the time it is the caregivers fault. They are stressing the ball python out. I have 20 ball pythons, and all of them eat without issue. Overfeeding is bad. Stop trying to justify overfeeding, just because you want to get you balls up to breeding size faster. It will hurt them in the long run.
I feed all my ball pythons and boas, a proper sized food item, every 7 days.

Wrong? Come on now what works for one doesnt always work for another.....one way isnt right it what works for you and your situation.
Kevin S

TheCrimsonGhost, stated on the ball forum, that he would feed his balls whenever they would eat, even if he was feeding them everyday. He also stated that he would do this, to get them up to breeding size. Daily feedings, power feeding, will eventually harm/kill snakes. The reason he thinks this is acceptable, is because he misinterpreted someone. The person stated that if your snake will not eat, then place a prey item in the enclosure every day, until the snakes eats. He interpreted this as, if after the snake eats, then keep placing prey in daily. Pretty much feed as much as possible. The person replied to that later, and stated that he told him twice a week feedings, not daily. It is a caregiver’s responsibility to properly take care of his charges. This includes the amount of prey you give to them. Sorry for the rant, it just really upset me to think that someone would improperly care for their snakes, just to make money faster. Just my two cents...

It was meant as an iside joke that didn't get relayed through the message. I only feed my snakes 2 to 3 times a week. As far as in it to make money, that is the farthest thing from the truth. Even if I wanted to how much money could I seriously make with twelve snakes, with only 4 breedable females. I just made the switch to balls last year. Before that I spent the last five years with boas, and you can ask anyone who has seen my animals that they were healthy and happy. I drove a peice of crap aerostar van because all of my money went to my snakes. Ask Guy Scavone how my boas looked, or ask anyone who has seen my ball pythons how they look. If my animals were so mistreated and overweight, how come when I got out of boas all of my animals were sold off within one week.
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You're never gonna get me.........I'm the Crimson Ghost

The inside joke went a little far. Newbies seeing that post would take that the wrong way. Its good to hear that you were not serious about that. Sorry that I got worked up. I just felt bad for the little ones.

Thats my bad. It's hard to be sarcastic without tones of voice and facial expressions.
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You're never gonna get me.........I'm the Crimson Ghost