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Power feeding

A

AP reptile

New member
Hey, I am new to cornsnakes and I just bought 2 this week. I plan to breed them at the apporiate size and such, but I want big snakes! I have been currently feeding them 1 pinkie a day. I know you are supposed to feed them 2-3 times a week but, I hear power feeding just makes the snake bigger faster. The myth's about shorter life and bad for them, is not true. Robert applegate, wrote an article about power feeding and confirmed the myths. any thoughts? Thanks, Trent
 
1 pinky a day is about 5 times more than is healthy for it....

Power feeding is not healthy, and will end up taking months or maybe years off your snakes lifespan.
Overfeeding is a form of abuse, and I am not for it at all...
 
3 times a week is still to much. When my snake was a baby he ate every five days.
The snake is going to grow the same size, it's just going to get there faster. You're also spending more money on mice than you have to.
 
Well, that's what I want a snake the size at 1 year that it should in 2. Also, I breed bearded dragons so Money really isn't a problem, and my uncle owns a pet shop.
 
Personally, I wouldn't do it...but it's your snake, so you can do whatever you want with it.
 
Yeah, but in the wild do you think they eat every five days? Or do you think they eat every nite when they hunt?
 
In the wild, they eat when they SUCCEED at hunting. So probably not every night. Other predators have been studied a lot and none of them catch a meal every day, so why would snakes?

If you want a really big snake, buy one with HUGE parents & feed it properly & it will hopefully grow up to be like mom & dad, very big. Power feeding runs the risk of hurting your snake. It's better to stick with feeding every 5 days, and feeding a suitable prey item, nothing too big (too big leads to regurgitation and regurgitation can KILL snakes, and for sure will slow down their growth).

Edit: Mind you, it's good that you have access to a pet shop and have money to buy all the right things! I'm not dissing that at all. And this may well help you give your snake optimal conditions to grow quickly while remaining healthy, and I'm all for that. I'd stick with every 5 days while your snake is a baby & juvenile, and search "Munson plan" on this forum for advice on what prey size is correct. A scale helps a lot, so you can weigh your snake and weigh the pinks/fuzzies/etc to get the meals optimized.
 
Ok. I just like to keep my animals nice, fat and healthy. Um, by any chance do you know the size of the snake to feed hoppers? Thanks, also my breeding room stays around 86 degrees is that ok with no heat on them? Right?
 
Ok. I just like to keep my animals nice, fat and healthy
Click to expand...
There's no such thing as a "fat healthy" animal. A fat animal is inherently unhealthy and has the assocated health risks.

You'll have a snake that reaches adult size twice as fast as normal, and dies at half the usual age. If you want to think of it in terms of money, you'll be paying twice as much for food as everyone else, for a snake that lasts half as long.
 
Well, I know in the bearded dragon world you want females slightly over weight if not chubby, idk If that applies with snakes or not.
 
AP reptile said:
Ok. I just like to keep my animals nice, fat and healthy. Um, by any chance do you know the size of the snake to feed hoppers? Thanks, also my breeding room stays around 86 degrees is that ok with no heat on them? Right?
Click to expand...

Fat isn't good for snakes any more than being 500 lbs is good for humans. Truly. What you want is for them to grow in proportion so they are nice & healthy & sleek, not underfed or overfed. For optimal snake health they need exercise too, take them out for supervised exercise sessions!

A hopper is a 9-12 gm mouse, and a snake 50-90 gms should be eating these. See this post for more info:

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50106

Snakes are said to like a temp gradient, and I think 86F is just a touch higher than the optimal 84F my snakes prefer. I don't ~think~ it's a problem but ask somebody with more experience, OK?
 
I have a corn snake book that says power feeding will not harm your baby snake, and they thrive on being power fed, but they have a higher chance of regurgitating.
Power feeding adults can lead to obesity, heart disease, and poor breeding performance.
I don't do it because I don't want to risk making my snake throw up.
 
I'm surprised that no one pointed out the fact that even if the snake is the size of a 2-year old at age 1, it still won't be able to breed any faster. As I understand it (and as it makes sense to me), even if the snake is 300 grams and 3 feet long, if it's not yet 3 years old, it may not be sexually mature.

Unless someone can point me to evidence that proves size and weight directly influence when a corn snake hits sexual maturity. :)
 
Halley, I think size & weight DO influence sexual maturity in females, in that a 3 year old female who is too small & too short may not be fertile, and even if she is, she is more likely to get egg bound, and she is likely to lay a small clutch if that doesn't happen.

A male that is 2 years old, 3 feet long & 300 gms may well be WILLING to mate, but who knows if he is shooting blanks or not. Some males do successfully breed at under 3 years, ask people who have succeeded with young males if these guys were 3 feet & 300 gms. That I don't know.

I do know what has been said here by experienced breeders about the risks of breeding females who are EITHER too young or too small or both & that's what I am commenting on.
 
I got a 125 gallon tank, when can I put them in there? One is about 20 inches and 35 grams and the other is about a foot and 15 grams.
 
Cohabbing is generally a bad idea. Cornsnakes don't get together voluntarily except to have sex. That's a HUGE tank. I would put a divider in it, and one can live on each side. Even now, you could do that if you gave each one LOTS and LOTS of hides. I would put the UTH in the middle, so half was on each side of the divider, that would provide each snake with a nice warm side while using only 1 UTH. One half of 125G is a lifetime home for a cornsnake.

Then you can set them up with a honeymoon bin when they are large enough and old enough to mate.
 
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