Feeding them as much as they want?

[peregrinefalcon]

I was just reading this thread in the ball python forum and it got me wondering about bloods. Do you guys feed your bloods by the "once a week rule" or do you just feed em as much as they want? I've been feeding my two once a week and I know they would take more. If you have been feeding your snake as much as they want for a while now, is it healthy? And could you post a pic of it?
Thanks for your opinions,
Adam

[Jezabel]

I nerver tried feeding as much as I can so I can't give info about it, I prefer feeding schedule. Cause with the feeding as much as you can, you need to defrost more and might lose some food if they are less hungry, it's also longer to feed them. But that only advantage for the keeper, not the snake. The thing I use for feeding schedule is keeping track of their weight to know if they are growing and feeding them accordinly to their growth. He's a link of my borneo short tail who was feed avery week in the first months, bout every 10 days between 5-10 months and every 14 days since then.

Borneo short tailed growth

I think he always looks healty. I'm not saying it's unhealty to feed as much as they want but I wander, with such a quick growth rate on feeding scedule, it would have been scary feeding him more. Blood python also have a slow methabolism (and a shorter digestive track I guess for their size) so if it's longer for him to digest and evacuate, so I prefer to give more time between meal. But it just my opinion. As always in the reptile world, lots of differents opinions , try what you think is the best from reading everything. I would be interested to see result of a research from snake from the same breeder, same age one on feeding schedule on not the other to see long term effect of both methode but I don't think such thing have been done yet.

[burmer]

I feed my borneo once a week. I know he'll eat more if I give it to him. He doesn't move around alot and they all seem to have a slow metabolism. It would worry me to feed him more than I do.

[Linds]

I have to disagree with feeding them as much as they want. Snakes WILL overeat... as will all animals. If that was the case, there wouldn't be problems such as obesity in animals. Snakes have a built in reflex, its instinct to take what they can get because in the wild they don't always just have an endless supply of food, and they have to travel a lot in between meals as well, they don't get anywhere near that same excercise in captivity. I wouldn't want to encourage such fast growth in younger animals either, have you ever had a huge growth spurt? That BS freakin hurts!! Feed them one item, whenever they are hungry. If you don't know when to recognize when your snake is hungry, then use a schedule til you learn just to be safe.

[Chris Steele]

Will you try to explain how to tell when a snake is hungry? I have always tried to stay on schedule.

[Burm crazy]

when i feed my snake i feed her as much as she wonts to but i wont give her more than 3 or 1 big one she is a BP 3 years old and 3 1/2 feet so your biggest wory is that it will grow faster.

[lilyskip]

you can generally tell when a snake is hungry if it is crawling around the cage an inordinate amount of times (like it's looking for food). some people have told me that their snakes even get snappy when they're hungry. i think the over-active thing is the best judge, though.