Dwarf species(Boidae,Colubrids..etc anything) - Feeding Schedule

[Mikoh4792]

Are these dwarfs supposed to be fed less often? A dwarf boa seller on kingsnake told me he's been feeding his captive bred babies every week and they have been regurgitating regularly. My guess is that they eat less often or eat smaller prey items because of their "Dwarfism". I don't know if this has to do with a shortage of food supply in their natural habitats or if it's genetic, but maybe they are supposed to eat less often than their bigger counter-parts?

[StudentoReptile]

Its not so much a shortage of food supply, but the reduction of average prey item size. In most cases, the mainland localities are larger because of A) wider distribution range and B) wider prey variety and typically larger prey size. I'm willing to bet there's a little more to it, such as isolation causing sexual maturity to onset quicker for dwarf localities, which again, negates the need to grow any larger.

To answer other part of your question, it largely depends on the exact species, and has little to do with dwarfism vs normal sized. Ex: retics have higher metabolisms than say, green tree pythons. Feeding a retic less won't necessarily make a dwarf, and feeding a GTP more won't make it grow larger.

[Mikoh4792]

Originally Posted by StudentoReptile

Its not so much a shortage of food supply, but the reduction of average prey item size. In most cases, the mainland localities are larger because of A) wider distribution range and B) wider prey variety and typically larger prey size. I'm willing to bet there's a little more to it, such as isolation causing sexual maturity to onset quicker for dwarf localities, which again, negates the need to grow any larger.

To answer other part of your question, it largely depends on the exact species, and has little to do with dwarfism vs normal sized. Ex: retics have higher metabolisms than say, green tree pythons. Feeding a retic less won't necessarily make a dwarf, and feeding a GTP more won't make it grow larger.

I see, I'd probably be interested in hearing what people have to say specifically about dwarf/Island boas then. Mainly caulker cay(since that's what I have), crawl cay, corn island, pearl island...etc). I heard one of the reasons these boas have evolved to become so small is because the adults main diet are birds, which migrate every "x" season and during that time they don't eat as much. Could just be hearsay but I'm very interested in this subject.

[SnakeyJay]

Temperature also plays a part to a minor extent, like with the Tarahumara mountain boa.. Lower temps means that a larger bodied snake will struggle to keep their core temperature up..

Just a different line of though than the prey influence your already considering.