Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently acquired a female jungle carpet python, she's just under 6 ft. and is overweight. The person I adopted her from apparently loved to watch her eat and fed her way too often. I'm not going to be breeding her and I would like to slim her down some if possible.

She was being fed twice a week on small/medium rats and wasn't getting very much exercise at all. I've kept carpets for a while now and keep mine on a very regular diet so Ive never had this issue before. Are there any concerns with reducing the snakes feeding schedule? Would it be better to downsize the prey size and continue to feed on a normal schedule, or to continue feeding her medium rats but stretch the length of time between feeding out longer?

She's fairly aggressive but not too difficult to handle, so she will be getting regular out of the cage exercise, so that should help her along some. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. I'll post up some pics when I'm home shortly.

We got an adult female coastal a few years back that had been overfed. I only fed her once or twice during the first 4-6 months I had her. She bred, and produced an almost completely infertile clutch. During the past 2 years since I have only fed her about 4 times a year and she just laid a clutch a couple days ago of 35 eggs, and it looks like 33 of them are good! So, in that limited experience it was fine to cut her frequency of feeding WAY back, but I am sure that either reducing size or decreasing frequency will do the trick.

Now post pics!!!
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Ben
www.australianaddiction.com

She isn't overweight to the point where i believe its a major health risk yet, but she's a lot heavier than I keep my carpets. I like them to be agile and able to spend their time up in the branches, and she's just not in shape for that. I've got no plans to breed her so I'll probably put her on a 30-40 day feeding schedule and see how it goes.

I've been browsing this forum for a year or so and I knew I would get a quick response from you, much appreciated. Next time I'm at the house and I have a moment I'll post up some pictures of my collection, I've got 2.1 striped coastals, 1.0 coastal jag, and 2.1 jungles, and a couple hedgehogs for the ladies

Very cool! Looking forward to seeing the pics
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Ben
www.australianaddiction.com

Having done rescue and seen a lot of overweight snakes, I reduce frequency. I tend to feed my adult carpets every 2 weeks, so what I would do is move her to a more normal schedule.

You may see increased aggression initially. Think of yourself on a diet is the best way I can describe it. After a few months of normal feeding that issue will settle. It will just take her time to adjust.
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Cindy Steinle
PHFaust
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I know im gonna get torn up for this but my carpets LOVE to swim in the pool. i catch some flack because of the chlorine but the general rule is if its ok for people its ok for snakes and ive seen experts like nigel marvin do it. Anyway swiming is great exercise. Mine go right to the bottom of my ten foot pool and swim really fast. Its cool and they love it. My female irian jaya goes crazy for it practically jumping out of my hands to get in. Plus, its a great way to interact with them and really helps tame them. Ive never seen snakes get so excited or appear to enjoy themselves like this.
hope this helps
Jason

That sounds awesome, and it's something I have thought about since I do have a pool, just wasn't sure about the chlorine issue.

Go onto the Python forum and read the couple recent dietary threads!