Power Feeding Anyone?

[Steveo]

I've heard of people power feeding their pythons and kings, but from everything I've read it's not advised unless you're trying to breed as early and often as possible. Some people suggest accelerated feeding of young snakes, which I understand, but not feeding them until they can't eat anymore.

Most constrictors have a strong prey drive and will eat as much as they can as often as they can, if allowed. (Sounds a lot like me, except chocolate is my prey.) I have a sub-adult king and she'll eat until nothing else will fit. I let her pack it in when she feeds, but I only feed her every 7-10 days. Never before the lumps disappear and only after she's been roaming the tank for a day or two. She's a year old now and 23".

Granted, everything I've learned about snake husbandry has come from the internet, so take it with a grain of salt, but the most alarming argument against power feeding has been that a snake's liver and kidneys can't handle constant digestion and could fail in middle-age.

[ConcinusMan]

No power feeding. Overfeeding baby / young garters often results in sudden "unexplained" death. Besides which, healthy baby garters grow very fast with just adequate feeding. Digestion takes energy. They need to take a break from it regularly and go on an empty stomach for a day or three. Sexual maturity doesn't happen until 2-3 yrs old, regardless. You can't rush it.

[stevenrudge]

No power feeding. Overfeeding baby / young garters often results in sudden "unexplained" death. Besides which, healthy baby garters grow very fast with just adequate feeding. Digestion takes energy. They need to take a break from it regularly and go on an empty stomach for a day or three. Sexual maturity doesn't happen until 2-3 yrs old, regardless. You can't rush it.

Ok in the past when l new no better l have power fed most types of snakes including garters.The health risks are far to great to the health of the snakes.l've had Garters breeding at 12 months of age,in every case of early breeding the offspring were weak

[ConcinusMan]

Yeah, they can breed early if they're big enough but it's far better to wait until females are about 3 yrs, males at least 2 yrs.

[kibakiba]

Or for northwesterns, 4-5 years. Darn slow growing turds.

[ConcinusMan]

That's up for debate I suppose. I've seen female northwesterns as small as 12-13 inches give birth to 1 - 3 fat, healthy offspring. In their case, small size only seems to limit the number of offspring per litter.

[zooplan]

Sorry to be late at this thread, now I don´t know where to begin.
How do you draw the line between adequate and " power feeding"?
I normally feed most of my adult snakes "ad libitum" once a week but when I´m too busy the have Lent.
A study of the German vet Dr. Sassenburg in 1970th showed, that even the good keeping conditions in captivity
shortend the age of maturity from 27 month down to 9 month in 5 generations.
In addition we had some studies about the efficiency of different feed:
earthworm, fish and rodent diets show no significant differences in growth but for defecation!
Reguration after feeding is always a sign of stress or illness, Garter Snakes swallow exceeding prey in nature with no harm.
I agree that slow growth is the best way to rise baby snakes for a long and healthy liftime.
Does anybody know any study about feeding frequency in the wild?

[ConcinusMan]

Garter Snakes swallow exceeding prey in nature with no harm.

This is true, but wild garters aren't handed large meals with great frequency. They must stay hidden and remain relatively still while digesting and generally do not venture out looking for another meal until they are truly hungry. If someone brought it to them and put it right in their face, I'm sure they would eat it, but that just doesn't happen.

[zooplan]

BTW: Let me tell a six sentence story:
I had a small, picky feeding Red Sided Garter Snake called "Schnürsenkel" (boot lace) because of his slender shape.
I was sure he was a male and gave him to my brother who wanted to keep a single snake.
Schnürsenkel escaped and took a two weeks exeat in the garden and ate all snails, slugs and earthworms he could get.
He was caught again in a good shape.
Suddenly he grew up enormously and shows: I failed by sexing her !
Several years are gone by since that, but I´ve seen several Garter Snakes since then,
that had an intense growing period after reaching maturity.