BRB Growth

[beefieee]

I have a male Brazilian rainbow boa that seems to be growing at a very fast rate. He is 10 months, 327 grams and around 3.5'. From everything that I've seen/read, larger females of 10 months are normally 200ish grams. Anyone got charts or logs of their BRB growth that I can compare too?

I have kept him in a 4x2x2 PVC cage since week 1. Temps are 78-83 with humidity 90-100%. He is also a great feeder. He would eat daily if I let him. I been feeding 1 prey of ~15% every 5-6 days and he's never has passed up a meal.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Although there is no "growth chart," that really is huge. Even my biggest yearling BRB is well under 200 grams. Not even my 1.5 year old BRB is 300 grams, he just broke into the 200's a few months ago.

Your feeding schedule is probably why he's growing so fast, I'd consider that schedule power feeding myself. A boa should never get more than 10% of their weight every 7-10 days. 10-15% is far too much food, and in my experience 15% is the limit of their physical capabilities.

I have found, for boas under or around 1 year old, that 10-11% is a good max to aim for. At that size, it leaves a respectable lump but nothing outrageous, and very closely matches the girth method - where the prey is 1-1.5x the girth.

As snakes get older, that percentage equates to more and more food. For example, a mouse 10% of my sunglow boa's weight is appropriate (if a bit large), but a rat 10% of my adult BCI's weight would be too big. He could physically get it down, but if he ate it all the time he'd get obese. BCI are the only species I have a full grown adult and a baby, so that's why I used them here.

My rainbows are getting mice that are 8-11% of their weight every 7-14 days. Homura, the yearling, eats 10-11% of her weight every 7-10 days and Sanji the 1.5 year old eats 8-9% of his weight every 2 weeks (he'll be 2 in August so he's closing in on 2 years). Sanji has eaten every 10 days since I got him, but he was eating every 7 days while I was waiting to switch him from hoppers to small adults.

I go off girth, and to get the numbers I've giving you I just cross-multiply to give you the percentage their normal-sized prey items are of their weight. The only snake I feed based off weight is my retic, every other snake I have would be overfed on that method.

No rodent-eating snake should be eating more often than every 7 days, they need time for their organs to return to a resting state, and keeping them constantly full isn't going to do that. Feeding every 5-6 days isn't even giving them time to properly digest their meals, if you don't have to don't feed more often than 7-10 days.


(I also want to note the numbers are based off of very old weights, so they could be much heavier as I haven't weighed them in a month or two - this is assuming the yearling rainbow is still 143 grams and the oldest is still 200-205 grams.)

[Snakesitter]

I would second the thought that your schedule is a lot of food very quickly. I feed mine based not on prey weight, but prey size. Babies get a rat pink or mouse hopper once a week, with the occasional skipped session, until they reach a certain size, and then get jumped up to rat fuzzies -- usually, by alternating with pinks for a few sessions to give them time to adjust.

Your other specs, however, are perfect -- well done!

[beefieee]

I got my brb from a breeder that has been breeding BRBs for 20+ yrs. This breeder actually sold some of the first albino BRBs. He said 5-6 days seems to get them on a great schedule. My skittles has never turned up a meal(even in deep shed), he hasn't struck at anything out of confusion since he was under a month old and he is always ready to come out and play on the 3rd day. I always have him out atleast twice a week. He's a curious little guy,wanting to explore everything.

I personally think that the overfeeding thing is mostly a myth. Like the "never feed in the snakes enclosure" thing or "too big of an enclosure is stressful". (personally learned those the was BS). I've never seen any proof one way or the other on the overfeeding matter. If he stops growing, start turning down meals, or starts getting fat, I'll slow down but limiting a growing baby of any animal seems bad.

With all that said, Skittles is growing faster than his brothers on the same diet. I think he might be a giant in the making.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Originally Posted by beefieee

I got my brb from a breeder that has been breeding BRBs for 20+ yrs. This breeder actually sold some of the first albino BRBs. He said 5-6 days seems to get them on a great schedule. My skittles has never turned up a meal(even in deep shed), he hasn't struck at anything out of confusion since he was under a month old and he is always ready to come out and play on the 3rd day. I always have him out atleast twice a week. He's a curious little guy,wanting to explore everything.

I personally think that the overfeeding thing is mostly a myth. Like the "never feed in the snakes enclosure" thing or "too big of an enclosure is stressful". (personally learned those the was BS). I've never seen any proof one way or the other on the overfeeding matter. If he stops growing, start turning down meals, or starts getting fat, I'll slow down but limiting a growing baby of any animal seems bad.

With all that said, Skittles is growing faster than his brothers on the same diet. I think he might be a giant in the making.

Every 5-6 days may be ok for a hatchling (personally even for a newborn I feel that's a bit much), but due to the physicality of the way snakes digest their food, 5-6 days is an excessive amount of food. It can take 7-18 days minimum to fully digest a meal, plus they should be allowed a short period without food so that their organs return to a "fasting state." This is imperative for the long term health of your snake. Although this study only focused on Burmese pythons, this method of digestion has been found to most likely be true for ALL boids (pythons and boas). It's called the Python Model by Stephen Secor.

Again, although the study focuses on Burmese pythons it has been found to be true in several other species of python and boa, and is speculated to be true for all boid species.

Unfortunately, overfeeding is NOT a myth. Vets all over quote fatty liver disease as the #1 killer of snakes in captivity. This is caused by a snake with unnatural fatty deposits going off of food, where the fat rapidly travels to their liver, killing them.

You cannot always see if a snake is overweight until it's too late. They store their fat internally, so by the time a snake looks chubby it's actually obese.

You can call it BS all you want but there's plenty of evidence out there to support my claims. Fast growth and overfeeding kills snakes. Maybe not in a few months, or a few years, but it can drastically cut their lives short. Instead of living 20-30+ years, they may live 6-15 years if you're lucky.

Here are some pictures of a boa constrictor who died from fatty liver disease. This is a breeding female, pumped full of food for breeding. She was overfed, and became obese and died when she became gravid.





These photos are easily viewed on Alain Hod's FB profile.

You're in denial if you're thinking snakes cannot be overfed. Their entire body is built to hold fat, if anything they're more likely to be overfed.

[Snakesitter]

You are correct on the "never feed in the snakes enclosure" and "too big of an enclosure is stressful" myths.

I'd still be wary of the feeding frequency, though. Even since the earliest days I began keeping, it has been warned that these snakes tend to obesity in captivity. They may handle it okay when young, but the older they are the worse it hits them.

[beefieee]

Mmm, I'll look into the overfeeding thing more, and I may start slowly cutting him back to 1 rat pup every 7 days instead of a weanling every 5-6days. I'll

For the breeder female pic, That's crazy. But I've heard that some beeders force feed their momma's every other day. Plus toss in the fact that those same breeders often keep a 7fter in a tiny little bin 24hrs a day. So that could just as likely be the case.

But I think we can all agree that forcefeeding is pretty messed up unless its for a hatchling that can't figure it out.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Originally Posted by beefieee

Mmm, I'll look into the overfeeding thing more, and I may start slowly cutting him back to 1 rat pup every 7 days instead of a weanling every 5-6days. I'll

For the breeder female pic, That's crazy. But I've heard that some beeders force feed their momma's every other day. Plus toss in the fact that those same breeders often keep a 7fter in a tiny little bin 24hrs a day. So that could just as likely be the case.

But I think we can all agree that forcefeeding is pretty messed up unless its for a hatchling that can't figure it out.

That schedule is probably a good idea, I'd maybe even go to 10 days to kinda thin him out, getting so much food has probably built up a respectable fat reserve. He's a little rounder than my rainbows are. At around 1-1.5 years old he'll be ready to be moved to a 14 day schedule, and when he's an adult (~3 years old), I'd definitely put him on a 2-3 week schedule, 3 weeks being preferable.

Unfortunately I do not remember the exact details of the way the snake was fed, and he didn't describe it well on his FB page, and I'm not sure of housing arrangements. The post that was made in the FB reptile group was more in-depth than the description he gave on his personal page, and idk if I'd be able to find it.

[Lefitte]

Wow, those pictures are crazy.

My boy came from the breeder eating a fuzzy every 7 days. I kept that schedule for the first bit and have since lengthened it to 10ish days and it usually ends up being longer. I try to keep to 10%ish of his body weight, but it's not always perfect, and I alternate every time I move up [feed large meal, next time feed smaller]. He only turned down one meal but I think that was more my lack of patience and a change in his eating habits than an actual refusal. Right now, my boy is five days from his first birthday. Last time I weighed him a couple weeks ago he was 143g. He's on medium adult mice [from Petsmart which has funny names for their sizes] which is about 15g each [the size before this was looking too small]. If there's a chance that something as simple as feeding schedule changes the length of my animal's life, I will do whatever I need to prevent that. I'm counting on 20 years with my pets. Besides, if I had kids, I wouldn't constantly be trying to feed them either or letting them constantly eat so it's nothing that I wouldn't do to a human child. I keep threatening my one cat that if he gets any fatter, I'm going to stop free feeding them and put him on a diet. I wouldn't turn down a hungry newborn, but once an animal grows up a little, it doesn't need a constant food source and having one is not something most animals are designed for. Snakes are ambush predators so they are built for feasting and fasting, not really built for constant food supplies. That's how I look at it.

[beefieee]

Update: I've been feeding him a 35-40g rat every 10-12 days. He is now 357g at 11 months old. Its been 10 days since I feed him so I'll feed him tonight. A ~10% gain in a month still seems crazy. His body still looks/feels the same. He is always out as if searching for food now though. This past weekend I got up late at 11am and he was half ways out his hide as if waiting for me to feed him. That's pretty abnormal for him.

[Snakesitter]

They can gain weight very quickly when young, but tend to do it in uneven bursts. Better to slightly underfeed than overfeed any reptile, but especially a "slender boa."

[bigsnakegirl785]

Yup, agree with Cliff here.

The meals seem rather large, that's the same size rat I'm feeding my 500 gram boa constrictor. Sure, they weigh less, but they're also thinner so I can't imagine them taking much bigger meals than boa constrictors. My 3' BRB is the same length as my female sunglow boa for example, the difference is a medium mouse is appropriate for him, and a jumbo mouse is appropriate for her. He was ~220 grams when I weighed him and she was around 270 grams last I weighed her.

The activity is normal. He probably sat in one place because he was overfed. Exploring does not necessarily mean he's looking for food, and I would not base my feeding regimen off his activity levels. Snakes are opportunistic, they'll eat themselves into a coma or an early grave. That said, it can take some time for him to get used to having less food, but it's very important for health to really start restricting his food intake. 11am is a bit late for them to be out, but I'd say that's just the change in feeding.

[Ian of Oldham]

I need to slow down on my baby Boas food, I was feeding two a week but now I will feed ones a week.


2Royal 1 Corn 1 Boa and a mad Cat.

[beefieee]

He isn't slowing down. He is 13 months now and 546grams. I been feeding him a 40gram rat every 7-10days for months now.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0...3g3TG9aZ2dBYWc

[JellyBean]

Wow, he is huge!
Silly questions:
1. Are you SURE it's a boy?
2. Do you have an actual hatch date? (Is his age accurate)?

I am stunned at his size.