What size rats do you feed your adult female balls? POLL

Originally Posted by jglass38

Owens,

Haven't we gone over before that you don't have a clue of my experience or lack thereof? I espoused my opinions based on REAL WORLD experience, mine and others that are respected in the industry. Try to get it through your head, please.

Why do you even both posting replies to anything I say? Its clear that your agenda remains the same. I don't like you, you don't like me. Lets leave it at that.

jamie,
The problem that I have with you is that you go around telling people what is right and wrong in absolute terms...and you don't have the experience to make such claims. I've asked you before to please elighten me...tell me what you produced this year...not what you bought and sold, and not what your friends produced, but what did you produce? I'm curious as to what kind of experience helped you to arrive at these conclusions.

so....since you had animals fast in YOUR collection...they all do???
And i also guess youve been keeping them long enuff or in numbers large enough to validate this with all BPs??or maybe did you ask you snake if it was full and didnt want to eat??

seems to be your logic here...

Like i said earlier snakes dont fast without a reason....Either wanting to breed,stess,too cold,too hot ,parasites could be a number of reasons hell htey may just need to take a big poo and cant hold anymore...but NONE of that has anything to do with the size of the meals they ate and it is a fact that the more often things eat...the faster they metabolize..

not tryin to make you feed big meals to your snakes or make you look stupid...because what your doing with your animals is fine if its working for you i say go for it..(Im personally not a big fan of maintenance feeding my animals)...no need to change a thing

Originally Posted by Dr Owens

jamie,
The problem that I have with you is that you go around telling people what is right and wrong in absolute terms...and you don't have the experience to make such claims. I've asked you before to please elighten me...tell me what you produced this year...not what you bought and sold, and not what your friends produced, but what did you produce? I'm curious as to what kind of experience helped you to arrive at these conclusions.

I didn't use absolute terms. I said, this is what I do. I said, this is what others do that work for them. I'm pretty damn opinionated and how it comes across is open to interpretation. So goes the Internet.

As far as what I produced this past season, 6 clutches of Ball Pythons. I dont know or care if that is insignificant to you. Ball Pythons are the only animal I breed or care to breed. I own Boas as well but don't breed them. I will probably do 15-20 clutches this year. I never claimed to be a big breeder. I know what works in my collection and I have quite a bit of knowledge (as is evidenced by my reputation on that unnamed forum).

I tend not to post here as often because I believe this site is mostly about the BOI and that is great. I love seeing scumbags outed as much as the next guy. The Ball Python forum consists of ads from the same few people and very little discussion about husbandry or breeding. Thus the reason I spend my time passing on whatever knowledge I can over there.

To answer Bryon and Gib. Yes I feed live and yes I raise my own feeders. Those are both part of the reason I feed 4-6 week old rats to all my Balls.

Being a live feeder I dont feel comfortable feeding rats over 6 weeks old due to the risk factor of being bit or intimidating/stressing my snakes. Also, there is just no point in keeping the rats on hand taking up space and eating up my lab block.

Now I do have a couple girls that are just stone cold killers that I have no problem feeding 8 week old rats to. It is not that often though that the rats live long enough to reach 8 weeks.

LOL I know how you raise your snakes Sammy and there is NOTHING wrong with it at all,I know tons of folks that do the exact same thing and it works great!

My best friend does the exact same thing and ive never seen anyone get a snake to grow the way he does!
feeding small mulitples is great and if htey are on live it makes life SOO much easier after egglaying when it comes to getting back on food and back to size

I do the same thing myself to some degree..i offer small live meals for the first few feedings to get them back on food hen i go right back to my normal feedings once they have put some weight back on...mind you not gonna cram 3 large rats down a snake that just lost half its body weight in eggs but you can be sure im a get her back to weight on her regular meals pretty quick!

Not really gonna hear me criticize how most folks keep there animals...everyone has there own way of doing things...But at the same token im not gonna let someone tell me im doing it wrong when i have the firsthand experience and years put into doing it to know otherwise

Originally Posted by shrap

To answer Bryon and Gib. Yes I feed live and yes I raise my own feeders. Those are both part of the reason I feed 4-6 week old rats to all my Balls.

Being a live feeder I dont feel comfortable feeding rats over 6 weeks old due to the risk factor of being bit or intimidating/stressing my snakes. Also, there is just no point in keeping the rats on hand taking up space and eating up my lab block.

Now I do have a couple girls that are just stone cold killers that I have no problem feeding 8 week old rats to. It is not that often though that the rats live long enough to reach 8 weeks.

LOL , it wasn't my intention to ruffle feathers so I hope I didn't. I have nothing against feeding live as I have done it for years. I now 95% of my collection on F/T and prefer it.

I raise my own feeders too and having boas up to the 20 & 30 pound range wagging anything smaller than a medium at them is useless lol. I hold back the males and grow them since they get big pretty fast.

I only have 3 Bps these days and was more curious as to the various reasons of feeding smaller food items. Sammy , your not the first I've talked to that feeds smalls for that reason.

Nope, no feathers ruffled here in the slightest. I was just answering your question bro as I am one of the people who choose to go the smaller prey route for Ball Pythons.

All mine get smalls.

OK, I actually weighed the sizes I feed this morning while doing rat chores. The majority of my adult BP get what would be small by Big Cheese standards (big smalls to mediums by your poll standards), but a few of my largest girls may get some that are medium by Big Cheese standards (large to xlarge by your poll standards).

So, your answer really could be anything from smalls to xlarge.....depending on whose standards you go by. As Sammy said, one man's small may be another man's large, and that could very well be part of the source of all of the conflict here.

Originally Posted by Cat_72

As Sammy said, one man's small may be another man's large...

YES!!! FINALLY!!!!

I have been trying to convince women of that my entire life.