Feeding schedules and sizes

[tbgnc22]

So I decided that I would post a discussion just to see where the majority of my fellow herpers stand on feeding. Do you feed smaller meals? Do you feel large meals? Multiple prey items? Or perhaps multiple feedings per week. I've tried several different methods of raising up females but interested to see everyone elses opinion. Right now I find that feeding 1 small meal twice a week is the most productive at weight gain. The bigger the meal, the bigger the crap. So what's everyones thoughts.

 

[mgoblue347]

I feed 1 small rat twice a week for my larger females, 1 small rat once a week for smaller females and all males.

 

[pythons&falcons]

I personally have found it depends on the individual feeding response of the snake. If I have a female that's just not an aggressive eater, and I see that she looks interested in a given week, I give her a large item to take advantage of it. For my girls with strong feeding responses, one smaller item every four days or so, I agree, is ideal. BUT if I suspect they are just about to go into shed, I give them a really large prey item because they aren't gonna eat for a couple weeks......so yeah it just depends.

 

[Reptile Frenzy]

We feed one medium a week to our females. A month before breeding season our 2000+ gram females we feed 2 mediums a week for that last month to get weight up then back to 1 a week until they go off food.

 

[cahrens]

So I decided that I would post a discussion just to see where the majority of my fellow herpers stand on feeding. Do you feed smaller meals? Do you feel large meals? Multiple prey items? Or perhaps multiple feedings per week. I've tried several different methods of raising up females but interested to see everyone elses opinion. Right now I find that feeding 1 small meal twice a week is the most productive at weight gain. The bigger the meal, the bigger the crap. So what's everyones thoughts.

When you say most productive, what data are you using? Are you weighing the rats and comparing that to the gains that the females are making? Or are you just figuring out what method provides the quickest gains? For me, I feed 1 med/lg rat once a week to all my breeder girls. Jumbo mice for the boys which eat throughout the year. The girls go off feed en masse between December and February. I then stop offering food to them until they lay, or look interested. I believe the bigger food items provide more usable nutrition as well as some much needed fat. I think the smaller items are far more lean and have a much higher ratio of waste. More skin, hair, bones, etc. per gram of meat. These are just my opinions on the matter though, I've done no research on it so you're 1 step ahead of me there.