underfeeding

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pyalda

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hey
i recently bought a carpet python which is about 7-9 yrs old and measures at (8 ft) he is pretty skinny for his age, and has white pigmentation in his skin(knowns as underfeed) I knew this because the person who i bought it from said they wanted to keep him a small size and only feed him medium sized rats. my question here is....Q. if i start over feeding or powerfeeding him, could he start to get decently long and big again, will his groth rate increase again. in other words ..could he ever reach 11-12 ft.:D
if anyone is in the same situation could u help me with this..
cheers
 
At 7-9 years i doubt he will gain any length, although i'd still advice feeding often to get him to a decent weight.
 
As Chicken said, he will stay the length he is now, maybe grow a little just because of the weight gain but nothing more.
And also as Chicken has said, keep feeding him up but just so he is round, not too overweight :)
Would love to see pics :)
Do you know what type of carpet he is?

In saying this, pythons keep growing throughout their life, so he will still keep growing anyway, just at a really slow rate.
Interested in this white pigment though?
 
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Howdy..without seeing any photos its hard to determine if its skinny-if so how much..with that being said i would rather one on the lean side then a overweight one which can lead to problems..Considering its already 7-9years old its pretty much fully grown,but you have to remember pythons dont stop growing..just slow down once they reach some age..You can feed him a couple medium-large rats every 2-4weeks or a larger food item to put some condition on..The white pigmentation in the skin due to underfeeding is new to me..Pictures and you may get other opionions..
 
hey mate , ive got a coastal who was in a similar position to what yours sounds like it was , he is supposedly 4-5 year old when i got him and was just over a meter and about as round a milk bottle lid(EDIT just looked at a milk bottle , no where near that thick he was closer to a coke bottle lid) at his thickest point maybe a little skinnier :( , he was only fed live as well because apparently he wouldn't take frozen thawed , funny thing though is he scoffed them down on his first night with me and has never even looked like turning his nose up

i cant say if he ever will reach full size but my guy is still growing , pretty slowly but still his getting there feed by feed , i wouldn't consider what im doing power feeding though , just a weight gaining diet

thats interesting about the white pigmentation you mentioned , does it sort of come from where the scale goes to the skin and work its way out , just that when my guy freshly sheds he has this exact thing , ive got some pics that show it alright if you dont mind me throwing them up quickly to see if it is the same thing ? also where did you hear/read that it is a sign their under fed , just curious really
 
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Snakes in the wild go thru famine and feast and their growth rate is indicitive of this. Start feeding him regularly and he will grow, snakes grow through out their whole life but just slow down as they get older. Average life span in captivity of pythons can be any where up to 30 yrs so he's still only a pup.
JMO
 
Snakes in the wild go thru famine and feast and their growth rate is indicitive of this. Start feeding him regularly and he will grow, snakes grow through out their whole life but just slow down as they get older. Average life span in captivity of pythons can be any where up to 30 yrs so he's still only a pup.
JMO
totally agree , my guys gone from around 1.2m when i got him and supposedly 4,5 years which i dont doubt as i had seen him 3 years earlier and he was around the size youd expect a small yearling to be and at the time i was told he was 2 from memory

now after a year he is just over 1.5m (1m and 57 cm to be exact ) last time i checked using that serpwidget thing and looking much healthier , sure he may not be growing as fast as a snake who had never missed a feed but he is still growing , i think his just putting more of his food into gaining weight and just generally getting healthy again rather than putting it to growing in size
 
If he is truly 8ft then it hasn't been underfed all its life.
 
Snakes can endup stunted as a result of severe malnutrition. Given their abilitiy to go for long periods with no food and the recover quickly when food does become available, they would have to be on the brink of starvation for some considerable time for it affect their ultimate length.

As was mentioned, body condition is the true indicator of being well fed, not their growth rate. The spine should be visible with a shallow indentation either side. If a snake is round in cross-section like a hose, it is overweight and the reason the indentations are not visible is because they filled out with fat. There will also be fatty deposits around organs and through the liver and in walls of blood vessels. It a snake has very protruding spine and is somewhat triangular in cross-section and feels hollow with little muscle resistance, then it is under weight.

For an underfed snake there is no need to try and catch by forcing the food. You could end up doing more harm than good. Just feed it normally. If it appears to be hungrier than other snakes you have, either increse the size of the food items of cut down a few days on the time intervalbetween feeds. Basically, let the snake dictate its needs.

Blue
 
All those albino Darwins are underfed...This is the 1st time ive heard of this..INTERESTING!!!!
now your just being silly and trying to make a mockery of the op

this is what i think he may be talking about , on the right hand side of the pic notice the whitish section working its way out from the inside of the scale where it meets the skin , now im not saying this is a sign of underfeeding (as ive never been told so or heard so prior to this thread)just that i my guy has it and i believe he has been underfed , out of all the other coastals ive seen ive never noticed this , but thats not to say its not normal pigmentation and you just dont notice it on most specimens
 

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Hi mate, I would never powerfeed any snake. I kept an adult Bredlii not long ago about that same size and I used to feed her an adult rabbit a fortnight or a jumbo rat every 10 days or so. I kept her heat on around 30 - 32 degrees during the time she was feeding and digesting her food. We kept her enclosure clean, dry and warm for the time I had her and she fed everytime so maybe you could try something like that..
Cheers
Dave
 
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finally got the pics of the white pigmentation (due to underfeeding from previous owner) the third pic shows one of the scales that is almost completly white. For those that wanted to know where i found the info on white pigmentation= underfeed... well, sorry about that, i looked evrywhere and still cant find it. it was just one of those days where i started to research and well...one website lead to another and i found myself reading it somewhere. again sorry about that. i could be wrong, but thats what i rememberd from what i read. if anyone finds any info on about it, could u please tell me where u found it. and ..well... the last pic was just for fun, i couldnt stop myself from taking it:D
cheers
phil
 
those pics dont work mate , go to advanced post , then scroll down to manage attachments and upload your pics
 
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finally got the pics of the white pigmentation (due to underfeeding from previous owner) the third pic shows one of the scales that is almost completly white. For those that wanted to know where i found the info on white pigmentation= underfeed... well, sorry about that, i looked evrywhere and still cant find it. it was just one of those days where i started to research and well...one website lead to another and i found myself reading it somewhere. again sorry about that. i could be wrong, but thats what i rememberd from what i read. if anyone finds any info on about it, could u please tell me where u found it. and ..well... the last pic was just for fun, i couldnt stop myself from taking it:D

cheers
phil

That's one of the problems with the interweb,not everything you read on it is factual.You yourself have mentioned it twice even though I doubt very much that there is any basis to it.Be great if you could find out where you originally read it.
 
finally got the pics of the white pigmentation (due to underfeeding from previous owner) the third pic shows one of the scales that is almost completly white. For those that wanted to know where i found the info on white pigmentation= underfeed... well, sorry about that, i looked evrywhere and still cant find it. it was just one of those days where i started to research and well...one website lead to another and i found myself reading it somewhere. again sorry about that. i could be wrong, but thats what i rememberd from what i read. if anyone finds any info on about it, could u please tell me where u found it. and ..well... the last pic was just for fun, i couldnt stop myself from taking it:D
cheers
phil


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