over feeding

Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum

Help Support Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.
What age snakes are you talking about? And how much food?

Young snakes can take in a fair amount of food as theyre growing...adults would just get fat and all the issues related.
 
constipation and obesity. I recall a thread on here from quite a while ago where a very young albino carpet actually split open from a large feed. Survived though.
 
An empty wallet and a fat snake is all I can think of, I havent had any pop yet :lol:

The risk of an obese snake is they get that bottle shape (doesnt look good or natural imo) and cant move around very easily, they can devellop a prolapse (thier butt falls out) and male snakes find it hard to breed, if not impossible.


Over feeding them and not providing heat to help them digest can kill them, if they dont have heat, they cant digest the food, so it stays in thier stomach and rots.....not good
 
I feed my snakes as much as they will eat when they want. Some refuse after a while and others just eat everything you put in front of them and start looking for more. I have a few elapids that get fed every 3-4 days then stop over winter. I haven't seen any adverse health issues from regular feeding.
 
Our UWS study confirmed this with 50 children's pythons. We fed the pythons ad libidum for 3 years and although their intake was around 30% of bodyweight weekly, they self regulated to around 15-17% as they matured. Growth rate was 98% linear in relation to prey consumed. It's been 5-6 years since these pythons hatched and not one has perished.

Gird
 
They die!!! Just kidding, But young snakes can have a bit of food, and it doesnt hurt if a bigger snakes have 2 rats, but probably not ideal to constantly feed 2 big Rats or .....Fat snake :)
 
Last edited:
fatty liver disease......

Fatty liver disease was associated with the use of supplements to add weight. Specifically high fat supplements like muttonbird oil. Even the there were only anecdotal responses, no actual research.
Free living snakes eat whenever they can. During high food yeild times they eat as often as possible.
 
It would be interesting to do a write up on all these common questions about snakes such as over feeding, mutton bird oil, cleaning branches/rocks to go in an enclosure, diamond python syndrome etc that presented actual research, or lack of.
 
once a week for small snakes and elapids due to higher metabolism and growth rates compared to once a fortnight for large pythons with a low metabolism and lengthy digestion rate is my personnal choice to avoid obesity and shortened life span. Its a pretty laid back life for a captive reptile when food is available on a regular basis without having to exert any energy hunting down prey over a wide area in the wild. Another factor for me is also not feeding until a snake poo is found in their enclosure to make sure its digesting its food properly and has an empty stomach for its next meal. This is my personnal view on avoiding over feeding and believe its a major factor in having my biggest python for close to 20 years without any health issues at all..... cheers
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top