How much food and how often?

[chris-uk]

I realise that there probably isn't a science to this, but a few opinions and suggestions would be helpful.
Binky is feeding quite happily, she takes both salmon and pinkies (I cut them into 3 pieces) from tongs. In fact, she's more adept at striking at the food than I am at keeping it out of reach... First piece of pinkie half an hour ago she got from 3" away, that's about 25% of her length. The second bit I made her work a bit more by keeping it out of reach until she'd done a length of the viv, then she struck that as well. She kept hunting for more for a couple of minutes, but she had had her lot for tonight.

First, is there anything wrong with making her hunt? I figure it's natural and can't be bad.

Second, how much should we feed her at 12-13 inches? I've read about others feeding 3 pinkies a week, but no indication of the size of the snakes they're feeding. Obviously we don't want to overfeed or underfeed (I know she won't starve but we want her to grow).

[Kantar]

I give 3 pinkies a week with some cut up bites of nightcrawler that my northern redbellies don't finish as snacks in between

[nekura]

How big are your snakes Kantar?

[kibakiba]

Feed enough to make a little bulge without literally disfiguring her, then wait until that bulge goes down and then add one more day onto that.
I used to have a prolem with overfeeding my snakes, and they were becoming seriously overweight, so when I started this they lost the fat and have been happy, healthy snakes. :D

Of course, if you give a very small meal, you can feed her every day if that's what you want to do.

[Kantar]

they are a year old about a foot long

[d_virginiana]

I like to feed a small meal every other day. If you feed more often like that, it's best to use more quickly digestible foods like worms and fish and only do pinkies a couple times a week.
Of course, I have an adult as well, so I don't have to worry about wasting the pinkie bits that my young one doesn't eat. He doubles as a garbage disposal :p

[annulataarethebest]

Hey Chris,
Snakes grow the most when they're young, before they're on pinkies I feed a couple small fish every day if they look hungry, once they put on some size they can easily take f/t extra small pinkies (day old pinkies). Once they're on pinkies I feed them one every couple days, first shed after a month on pinkies I upgrade them to 2 pinkies per meal every 2 days. Then they take off in growth.
In my experience offering a snake as much food as it wants to eat can't hurt. At 12-13 inches I would be giving most garter snakes 2-4 large pinky mice every 3-4 days.

[katach]

I fed our 5wk old babies every other day to every 3 days, depending on what they have eaten. If they ate pinkie parts I give them a little longer than with worm chunks. Our adults get 2-3 pinkies per week, with a worm or chunk of salmon as a snake mid week. We have 5 adult snakes 3 NW and 2 Pugets. The NW range from 19-22in., and the Pugets are roughly 30in. Hope that helps.

[RedSidedSPR]

I feed my babies every day. You gotta do it right though, for it not to be over feeding. Just a small meal, not enough to make a very big bulge, and very small, bite sized (head sized) pieces.

I usually end up feeding half (actually, usually more) a nightcrawler chopped up, and a small chunk of tilapia cut up, to 4 babies. Not that that's all I feed. That's just an example.

My adult, I feed every few days. Kinda the same way, small pieces (but not as small... he gets bigger chunks cause he doesn't eat as often). Plus he gets the babies left overs.:D

Click my YouTube channel in my singature to see videos of the amount I feed.

[chris-uk]

Click my YouTube channel in my singature to see videos of the amount I feed.

The way you feed looks similar to how we feed Binky, except we just have the one to feed at the moment. The sort of quantity you give to each looks to be about what I've been giving her, maybe I've been giving her a little more, but have been feeding every other day.

We currently have a freezer with 6 pinkies and about 60 bite-sized pieces of salmon and hake (cutting the fish up took ages, but I can just defrost the cling-film wraps of fish individually). That should keep us going for a week or two, I'll run out of pinkies first so more of them needed soon.

[RedSidedSPR]

Sounds like you got it covered.