Quote:
Originally Posted by moshirimon
90% of retics are overweight in captivity. "Keeping it small" being used the way it is by breeders, would actually in my opinion be the proper way of doing it as opposed to feeding a baby every 5 days. As long as the snake isn't underweight there is absolutely nothing wrong with keeping your snake small. And really it doesn't always keep them small, it just slows down the process.
All in all I think for any retic bigger than 5 foot, once a week feeding is ridiculous. (unless your bulking up a female for breeding)
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I get your thought process and where you're coming from.
I disagree in slowing down a process of a snake that regularily hits well over 10 feet for both male and females. Regardless of breeding. In the context it was initially said was that the animals are kept smaller purely to keep them a more managable size for the breeder. Nothing to do with health except for their own. Selfish as I said.
The last comment needs more context.
Is it bad to feed a snake the largest meal it can possibly take every week? Most likely yes.
Is it bad to feed by weight and keeping the meals a healthy size so it keeps a very healthy growth rate/healthy size on the snake? No.
Example, I feed my snakes, multiple species now, the same way. I use a 10 - 15% of body weight in their prey item on a regular feeding schedule. This has shown me over years to give both males and females a healthy growth rate. For adults I feed the same way and it's maintained males and breeding females with ample weight gain to give me healthy clutches/babies.
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