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Hi everyone,

I just have one last question regarding my earlier post concerning adult burms' head size.

It seems to me that a burmese python's body initially will grow quite quickly, while it's head grows proportionally slower, resulting in a snake with an apparently small head. This however, is corrected over time as the snake's body growth slows and the head continues to grow until it reaches a normal proportionally balanced size.

Does that sound about right to you?

Any comments, info, or personal experience would be great.

Thanks,
- Mark

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That seems logical but listen to this...

At the local petstore I get my feeders from someone had left a 13ft. male burm on their doorstep. The note enclosed with him said he was a 2 year old male who was powerfeed 8 jumbo rats a month. None of this is provable but this guys head was huge. It struck me as almost too big for his 13ft body, and he was only 2 years old.

Just something to confuse you I guess. He may or may not have been 2 ears old and he could have been a genetic freak for all I know.
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1.0 Ball Python
1.0 Burmese Python

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I saw at a recent reptile show a male burm who was advertised as being one year old and couldn't have been more than four feet long (poor thing)! His head seemed small for his body, ESPECIALLY his eyes which were TINY, much, MUCH smaller than the eyes of my Burm, who is only a little bit larger.

So perhaps powerfeeding actually increases the proportional head size . . . Though I had heard that it was the opposite in bloods?

I wonder if any research has been done in this area?
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Kitt

hi, Antegy-
--NICE lab burm you got there.

That seems right to me also. I thought sex might have something to do with it also.{w/females having a larger/wider head} I have several burms,1 adult reg.burm,1 sub adult albino patternless, and a baby granite. My largest is like 11-12ft. 75-80#s and has a relitively small head.{i think}The head is about the same size as my MUCH smaller alb.patternless.

P.S. Where d you get the reptile measurment tool software??

Thanks , Adam

n/p

Hi Adam,

I believe I got the program here.

>>hi, Antegy-
>>--NICE lab burm you got there.
>>
>>That seems right to me also. I thought sex might have something to do with it also.{w/females having a larger/wider head} I have several burms,1 adult reg.burm,1 sub adult albino patternless, and a baby granite. My largest is like 11-12ft. 75-80#s and has a relitively small head.{i think}The head is about the same size as my MUCH smaller alb.patternless.
>>
>> P.S. Where d you get the reptile measurment tool software??
>>
>> Thanks , Adam
>>

n/p

I was thinking of posting something on this myself as I just noticed it in my own Burm last week.

She ate her first LARGE (ex-breeder) rat and sat with a lump for about three days. On the fourth day when I took her out she seemed to have grown by several inches -- and her head looked VERY different! Her eyes seemed proportionately smaller and her head just seemed... Off.

She then went through shed, so was not fed for that week. This week her head looks "normal" again and is in proportion with her body.

I didn't get a chance to read others' responses yet, but I'm interested that at least one other person has noticed this phenomenon.
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Kitt