View Single Post
Old 12-19-2008, 05:25 PM   #5
Ceridwen
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bharmonika View Post
Okay, thanks for your replies. I now know the correct response to someone when I here it again. Thank you
Just to reinforce how much you can restrict growth by restricting food...

I took a california king snake from my roommate's care that was at LEAST 2.5 years old. It weighed 23g when I took over it's care in April of this year. She had been feeding it, as far as I can figure, about 1 (very small) pinky every 2-4 weeks.

I put the snake on the Munson plan and after 6 months I put it up for adoption. When I sent the snake to bekers (on these boards) it weighed in at ~140g. This is despite the fact that for the first 4 of those months it was kept in the same size enclose as my roommate had had it in.

The snake had no health problem keeping it small, it was simply fed a very limited amount that did not permit for growth. As far as I can tell the snake gained essentially no weight in the entire time my roommate had it. Even living in the wild it should have been nearing adult size and sexual maturity by that age. Under a normal captive feeding regime it would have been at LEAST 3 feet long and 250+g.