Feeding while gravid?

In another thread this came up. I didn't want to derail that thread but thought this would be an interesting discussion.

Do you feed your girls when they are gravid? Why or why not?

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I have always offered food during the first 60-80 days of gestation with the prey item being half the size of what the girl would normally eat. If they normally get 1 or 2 f/t jumbos, I offer 1 medium.

In all 5 of my litters (4 different females) during the last 10 years, they have taken this offered food and I haven't had any problems. One of the girls did refuse once, prey was removed and it was at the end of the feeding window so that was it for her. I always figured the extra nutrients and energy were beneficial to the growing young instead of taking everything from the mother's reserves.

I do understand feeding too close to parturition increases the chance of a premature delivery as the female tries to pass the waste.

A LOT of energy goes into the break down during digestion, is i think why. You take more energy away from the young when you do this, from my understanding. Their digestive systems are not always "On".

http://www.interpack.com/cipp/md_int...t/local_lang,2

Heres a cool article!

I feed, but I reduce it to monthly offerings. I also ramp down the size as the due date approaches, and discontinue entirely one month before. Last year I found my Brazilians eventually rejected f/t, but liked live mice right up until their last feeding.

I still feed, small to medium rats for the big girls. Only once a month, up until a month or a month and a half before they have the babies. Some stop before that.
Dennis

I will offer a smaller meal to a female that I believe is gravid to gauge her interest in feeding, this is usually the test to see whether she is, in fact, gravid. If the female is gravid, then I leave her alone except for changing her water and possibly cleaning the cage if it gets really dingy.

Chris

As I had no clue she was gravid, I continued to feed throughout a pregnancy, with no obvious ill effects - she refused when she didn't want food.

I think their instincts let them self regulate pretty well.

We feed acouple of meals during gestation here
Gestation meals are offered at a distance(as with ALL of our feedings),they come after it a few feet and they are allowed to take it.
My snakes tell me what they want,human speculation always comes second here.

Neat Stuff!

I would have to agree with most here. Let the gravid female tell you when she is hungry, most of us know our snakes well enough to tell there different "moods" apart. I myself, have all my snakes on a 30-50 day feeding cycle right now, and all but one seem to be just fine on this schedule. But once a female is suspected to be gravid, I go more by her body language and attitude (mood) to tell me when to offer food and when it's offered it is smaller than her normal size prey.