Over feeding?

[Solid Snake]

Is it possible to over feed your BP? This out of 3 BP's i've had eats like a garbage can! he eats and eats! I wait about 2 or 2 1/2 days to feed my BP so thats hes digested it's meal and offer a thawed rat and he'll take it without a prob.

[HetForHuman]

yes you can overfeed them. it is not really a good idea in my opinion to feed them this much, to me this is powerfeeding and could hurt them later on.
a good rule of thumb is to feed them every 5-7 days. this is how i do it and im sure alot of other people on here as well.

[mango]

My first snake died from impaction and nutrient shock from overfeeding, however she was badly malnutritious. I fed her one rat pinkie one friday and she took another the following thursday late or early early friday and she was dead the next day. I would say, even though I'm very amateur, that if it doesn't hurt him now it might later as het said, depending on age and health of your snake.

[mykee]

Yes, you can go overboard on the feeding, but I like to offer my balls as much food as they will accept within reason. If one of my balls eats a rat, I will offer her another right after, if whe takes it, I will continue to offer her food until she just strikes at it and pulls back, defensively. Some weeks they will eat like this, and others they will not take any items, or just one. Some would say that this is powerfeeding, but I leave it up to them to tell me how hungry they are. They will not eat themselves to death, and I am also there to gauge their food. Let me tell you, when your snake goes off feed for 4 months and eats nothing, you'd wish you got just that one extra rat into them.

[Tim_Cranwill]

Mango, I'd have to say that your snake died from something else. I just find it very hard to believe that a ball python that was fed two pinkie rats over the course of 6 days would die because of it.

Sorry for your loss...

[sapphire_moon]

I feed my bp's every 6-8 days....and so far so good.........

[Pia]

I wouldn't feed more than once a week. Snakes have slow metabolisms and to the best of my knowledge should have 5-7 days between feedings so that each meal can be fully digested. I would worry that if the one meal isn't fully digested, another on top of it might lead to a build up of partially digested food possibly decaying in the stomach. This is my just my opinion, so if anyone has more info I would be interested.

[mango]

so should you wait till one meal is passed to offer another??

[Tim_Cranwill]

In the wild a snake has to eat when it can. There is no way they would wait until they've poop out the last fuff of hair before eating again... For that matter, sometimes there is little or no waste to pass anyway...

[mango]

thanks that's good info

[eyespy]

I've spent plenty of time with surgeons picking undigested bones out of the intestines of snakes that were fed one prey item every few days. Bones take much longer to digest than skin, muscle, organs, and hair and so they tend to pile up undigested when animals are fed too often.

Eventually they get impacted on them but this can take months or even years and you usually don't have any warning signs it's about to happen until the bones shift in the gut enough to block off the plumbing.

[sapphire_moon]

I've noticed my snake gets "everything out of his system" after he is fed 3 small rats.....And there is alot coming out of his system. So I'm pretty sure he doesn't have anything left in there.....does this sound right?

[eyespy]

Impossible to say for sure, alot coming out can also mean that the snake has been overfed so much that it's passing undigested proteins and other parts of the rat. Bones can still be left behind.

[sapphire_moon]

no, no bones.....or anything.....not in his last one...I accidentaly squished it when I was cleaning out the cage.......eeck! But it's a regular thing.......ever three meals he does his thing....