....because honestly,... how could one POSSIBLY know what is "too much food"? We can't even really compare it to feeding in the wild. While this may seem like the logical yardstick to measure by, the wild has unpredictable and erratic feeding conditions. The snake in the wild may not find food for many months or a year or more. And then again, during sudden mammal/rodent population explosions due to whatever reason, be it heavy rain, seasonal abundance of grains and fruit (mammal food) or maybe even lack of preditory animals due to human encroachement, I can see where a python would be oportunistic and would engorge itself repeatedly while the food was plentiful. Or if it lived in a region where food always thrived it would undoubtedly be a hulking fat monster at a young age. This would certainly not cause it to die of a heart attack. So I personally think that it is okay for them to be fed a lot, as long as they get some form of exercise from time to time (weekly maybe) and are given an occasional break in feeding. When pythons are young it's pretty hard for them to become obese, but after they are a year or two old they are more susceptible to fat storage. So I'd suggest to keep any powerfeeding or heavy feeding to the first year or two. The only differences I can think of between wild prey diets and domestic diets would be the great diversity of different prey items in the wild, to a limited number of different domestic animals, (this should be looked into to see if maybe a greater diversity is somehow healthier) and the likehood that wild prey items should have MUCH less fat content than their domestic counterparts. (this too should be researched)
So in short,.. yes, feed her well, but watch her weight.
>>I love to keep my snakes very well fed. My new tiger loves to eat and i have a load of mice to get rid of. I plan to feed her as much as she will eat till she is around 1 and a half years old.Then i will slack off. In the 10 days i have had her she has ate 5 mice. She does not even have a lump in her. I am breeding rats so she will have bigger meals soon. I get pigs for free. I plan on breeding rabbits as well.
>>-----
>>Thomas Jones
>>aligatorhunter@earthlink.net
>>
>>The impossible is often the untried!!!
-----
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.]
