Feeding Frequency Correlation?

Originally Posted by carol

And for the other can of worms... what exactly is the benefit of having a faster growth rate?

I'm not really sure if there's a benefit either way. I'm not really sure that anyone can say that with the 'data' that we have.

However, from my experience snakes that have been on a 'maint. diet' for the first year of the lives---or even a few months---drastically hurts them as far as growth goes. I am by no means 'power feeding' any of my holdbacks---but my keeper male bloodred is almost 70 grams now. I miss feedings, and while I try to get it every 5 days, it's probably been more like every 7 for the past 2 months. If I was strict to the every 5 days he'd probably be well over 100 grams now.

What I was getting at, is that it seems for the first 3-6 months of life has a drastic impact on how those snakes will grow in the future. I'm not sure if it's metabolic, or what, but it sure just seems that snakes that are aggressively fed for that time just are better off.

Originally Posted by Roy Munson

As Joe state, we've discussed this, and I agree with his view. Of course, there are exceptions. My '05 female lav-blood was delivered on 1/3/06, and she only weighed 12g. She weighs about 370g now, so her initial maintenance diet didn't affect her much.

I still think you are feeding your snakes Bovine growth hormones.

Originally Posted by tricksterpup

I still think you are feeding your snakes Bovine growth hormones.

That accusation is udderly ridiculous...

It sort of depends upon what you consider a maintenance diet. I've always fed my corns on a weekly schedule. On occasion, I am able to feed the first clutches to hatch a bit more frequently for awhile, but when I start getting alot more little mouths to feed, one a week is all I can handle. Most of my keepers grew at what I thought was an average rate...until I finally got a scale and had something to compare my snakes with everyone else's. And I was totally amazed at how rapidly Dean's snakes grew. I still am, a bit.

However, I started something different last year and I have noticed a tremendous difference in the growth rate of most of my subadult snakes as well as how quickly my adult females get back into condition. It seemed that I had always been giving my snakes nice sized meals (they always left a good bulge)...but not quite as large a meal as they could actually handle. Apparently, I was not a very good judge of comparing the width of a snake to the width of the meal. I've since become a better judge, with lots of practice and the rare regurge when I went too big.

And on a side note - one man's fuzzy is another man's medium pinky and yet another man's jumper. I breed my own mice and rats as well as supplement with purchases of F/T when necessary. Depending upon the particular tank and the number of pinkies born and then raised, I get a large difference in the size of week old pinks through fuzzies on up to weaners. I was told by the breeder that my new jungle corn had just started on fuzzies. When he arrived, I found a 12 gram "pencil" that would probably take one look at my average fuzzies and think HE was going to be served to the fuzzy! As it is, he's able to handle what I call a medium pinky...barely. But I"m betting he moves up to actual fuzzies in no time!

It also seems that many snakes have had a certain "threshold" weight/size that it had a little trouble getting past, but when it does, it just seems to take off. The snake often grows nicely up to that threshold, then hovers there for awhile, from a couple of weeks to, in a few rare cases, around a year. Then it suddenly takes off again. And that threshold weight could be anywhere. I've has some hover at around 15 grams, 45 grams to over 100 grams.

Originally Posted by Susan

It also seems that many snakes have had a certain "threshold" weight/size that it had a little trouble getting past, but when it does, it just seems to take off. The snake often grows nicely up to that threshold, then hovers there for awhile, from a couple of weeks to, in a few rare cases, around a year. Then it suddenly takes off again. And that threshold weight could be anywhere. I've has some hover at around 15 grams, 45 grams to over 100 grams.

I see this occasionally too and often it's right before breeding season that they just naturally try and put on enough size to be on the market that season. I've had snakes not grow all winter long, but come spring they get huge even though the feeding schedule has not changed.
On a different note, I know it's a completely unfair comparison, but rushing to get snakes adult size by age 1 1/2 or two reminds me of a 200 lb 14 year old human. Sure they are as big as an adult but.... Same with feeding, sure if you pump kids up at at early age, they will be able to gain more wait over time than an average kid. Again, admitting this is an extreme example here. But I see the logic that it's pretty unsafe for a 14 year old girl to have a baby but if it happens, I bet a "fit" girl would do better than an overweight one. And if you want to go for an ideal, a woman would have the best chances being fit her whole life and waiting until she was physically mature to procreate. It would not be ideal to get to "adult weight" rapidly and then just try and get into shape a few months before conceiving. So it's not the best example but the only one I can think of after a hard day's work.

On another note, I also agree it's all in the definition of "maintenance diet". I've seen what Joe is talking about in extreme cases, but I haven't seen it on corns that I've put on "maintenance diets" myself. I know on multiple occasions I've gotten very lazy raising male hatchlings up thinking "I don't need to push it, I've got two years to get this male to 200 grams". Many times I'll have the male on a "maintenance" diet and before I know it a year has past and the male is still under 50 grams. Then I put more effort into growing them and never have a problem jump starting them and getting them to put on enough weight by fall to put them into brumation.

In my not-so-vast experience, I've noticed a few things. Of course, we all know that individual snakes can have individual needs. I've never implemented a maintenance diet for a snake until it reached at least 300g. But I've had hatchlings on 5-6 day schedules grow like weeds while others remained healthy, but hardly grew on this schedule. My '06 blood-stripe was on a 5-6 day schedule, eating small pinks. She hovered at 14-15g for months. I got sick of it, and increased her feeding frequency to a strict 4-day schedule about a month ago. In that time, she graduated to large pinks, and she's up to about 22g and she's growing steadily. My new '06 rosy bloods were fed small pinks weekly by the breeder, but they were only about 8g when they got here. I don't think anyone can say that this weight is ok for a six-month old (or older) corn snake. They are now on the strict 4-day schedule too, and responding very well to it.

I think a 4-day schedule is pushing it for most hatchlings, but some puny, high-metabolism babies seem to need it. Another strange thing I've noticed is that some of these high-metabolism snakes actually seem to do better at slightly cooler temps. I've always assumed that rapidly growing hatchlings should be subjected to slightly higher temps than older snakes. It seems that this isn't always the case.