How do I know when to feed more

[Colin41]

My Stmson's Python is 4 months old and is feeding well, I feed her one pinky every Wednesday. When should I start feeding her more (2 pinkies) or larger mice? Is there a particular thing I should look out for that will indicate that she requires more? I don't just want to keep trying to feed her more if she should not require or want them.
Any help is most appreciated.

 

[Susannah]

I'm a not *that* experienced, but my little stimmy is 4 now (just over a meter and 500g) and has gone up a feed a few times. He goes off food for long periods, especially before shedding, but then gets back into a regular routine and has gradually gained weight.
Signs you may notice - she might get nippy, or still be very active after eating. Often if they're full, they will sit in their hide for a couple of days before moving again.
Food usually needs to be big enough that they'll need to dislocate their jaw and get a good stretch going with eating - else its' too small. I think the rule of thumb is about 20% of the weight, or about as thick as the thickest part of your snake. And when they've eaten, you should see a nice swollen belly.
Younger and smaller snakes may eat more often (once a week) but once they get bigger, they may stretch out meals a bit longer. My guy won't eat each week these days, so now I give him 2 or 3 adult mice once every two weeks.
You might like to offer two pinkies before going up a size? It all depends on your snake!

The stickies are a good source of info too - and also look at photos of folks feeding their snakes which will give you an idea for how big to offer. It always looks so big, but the snakes love it!

 

[CF Constrictor]

Next time you feed her , if she takes a pinky and dosn't dissapear into her hide right away, give her another one. If she takes the second pinky, i would try giving her fuzzys or larger from then on. Its amazing how big a meal a python can swallow. I recently fed a rather large quail to my young bredli that was close to twice the snakes girth. It took him about 45 min to get it down and he now looks like he swallowed a small football. If the food item is to big , they will simply spit it out, no harm done.

 

[Sdaji]

If the food item is to big , they will simply spit it out, no harm done.

Except when they regurgitate it, which in some cases can lead to eventual death due to damage to the oesophagus or digestive system, or those times when the feed itself can't be digested and it kills the snake. Regurgitation is often caused when a meal is too large and while generally it doesn't cause too much harm, it's reasonably common for it to cause some damage to the digestive system resulting in recurrent regurgitation, which if not managed can become a serious issue (in some cases eventually resulting in death). Sometimes snakes eat siblings as their first meal. This leads to death more than half the time, because the meal is about the same size as the snake and the shape make it hard to regurgitate. The shape of rodents generally makes them easier to regurgitate, but there are certainly times when snakes fail to regurgitate rodents when needed, resulting in their death.

But other than when that happens, no harm done!

It's definitely not okay to be telling newbies that it's safe to be offering meals of any size because they'll just fail to eat it if it's too big. This is absolutely not true.

 

[CF Constrictor]

I never sugested feeding young pythons any sized meal , i would assume common sense would tell most people that ! From personal experiance, i have had no problems offering meals up to 1.5 to 2 times the girth of the snake . I have also watched my snakes as they grew, try to take meals they cannot swollow and eventualy spit them out with no ill effect.

 

[Sdaji]

. If the food item is to big , they will simply spit it out, no harm done.

These are your words. This is extremely dangerous advice. It is easy for snakes to eat meals large enough to likely cause them problems. Snakes are very much capable of eating meals large enough to kill them. I've seen it happen many times.

 

[CF Constrictor]

Fair enough, forget everything i said then . ☺