Adult age?

[Trewin]

My stimsons is common up to 2 yrs old now and about 65cm. My question is at what age is he classed as adult? so then i know when to move him from feeding every 7 days to every 10-14 days. During winter when he goes of feed should i bring the temps down a bit, for hibernation or whatever?

 

[pythoninfinite]

You don't have to be so formulaic about feeding intervals. What do you think they do in the wild? They eat when they can, if they're hungry, at whatever age they may be. Sure, adults can be fed less often, but so can youngsters, it's just us who choose to feed the youngsters more often, for a couple of reasons - we want them to grow fairly quickly and feeding them is always an interesting experience, and we also have this thing about feeding animals REGULARLY, which comes from thousands of years of feeding mammal and bird pets, whose food requirements are much more regulated by their faster metabolism.

Even if we gave our baby pythons a decent meal only every couple of months, they would still thrive, just grow slower, and the owner impatience of seeing their animals actually do something wouldn't be satisfied so often.

AS far as winter goes, just supply heat for 8-10 hours during the day, off for the rest of the time.

Jamie

 

[ronhalling]

[MENTION=41323]Trewin[/MENTION], as Jamie has suggested there is no need for a regimented feeding time or day other than convenience for the keeper, with my Spotties during Summer (and the warmer months) i find around 2 to 3 weeks seems to be sufficient or when they pace the enclosure and become overactive, my little 1's are coming on 3 years old now and are in peak health, during winter or when they decide to Brumate i stop offering food at the beginning of May (unless they are still active) and don't offer food again until around mid Sept, again this is subjective and will always depend on climate and area you live in. As far as their heat is concerned i drop their heat (under floor heating) down to 26 deg C whilst brumating and bump it up to 34 deg C (day time only) as the weather warms up, i have no heating 6pm-6am during the warmer months and they do not suffer for it at all, hope this helps to augment your knowledge. .............................Ron

 

[Trewin]

Cheers guys, ill drop the temps a bit during winter for brumation, i was always afraid of "stunting" his growth by not feeding him often enough, but i see now that they can't really be stunted in growth like lizards, they just grow slower depending on the amount of food given. Thanks