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Miscellaneous Corn Snake Discussions This is a "none of the above" forum. All posts should still be related to cornsnakes in one form or another, but some slight off topic posting is fine.

power feeding!
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Old 01-12-2013, 09:45 AM   #1
aleks
power feeding!

I’m not talking about giving to big mouse…. But feeding every 4 days to get them bigger faster.

I was wondering if anyone could give me info on power feeding… what do you think about it… what can it do to your snake at young age.

A lot of people have split thinking on this subject. I would love to know your experience and what u think about it!
 
Old 01-12-2013, 10:14 AM   #2
bitsy
My best advice would be not to do it. There's no real reason to make a Corn grow abnormally fast, other than the owner's impatience. It won't benefit them.

Some people think it will help them breed sooner, but this can backfire badly. Females might reach breeding size faster, but the weight is likely to be fat rather than healthy muscle and you can't tell whether she's sufficiently developed internally to withstand the rigours of forming and laying eggs. There's a greater risk of eggbinding, which can be life-threatening. Males can breed successfully from a small age and size anyway, so there's not even that kind of benefit to power feeding them.

I own Corns which had been power-fed as hatchlings and I have to say that they pile on weight at the slightest provocation. I have one adult male on a diet of one adult mouse every three weeks - he's still big and runs to flab unless I'm very careful. Sometimes I even have to take him down to small mice for a few months. In my experience, once their metabolism is geared up to handle power feeding, it goes into overdrive somehow. It seems to affect how their food is digested and metabolised in a way which is unhealthy unless managed carefully. And that goes on for the rest of their lives.

A healthy Corn lives for 15+ years in captivity and on a standard feeding regime will hit adult size around the age of three. A power fed Corn might hit adult size from ages one or two, but that could have knock-on impacts for the rest of its life. It could even cause a shortened lifespan.

I've yet to see any evidence that power feeding has any benefit or advantage for the snake.
 
Old 01-12-2013, 11:12 AM   #3
ghosthousecorns
How big is your corn? I would say once every 5 days would be the most often I would feed a baby corn but that would be way too often for a juvenile or adult.
 
Old 01-12-2013, 04:34 PM   #4
Chip
Power feeding would suggest either oversized meals or a full size meal on a shorter than 5 day schedule. This can be done with babies, as long as they have digested their last meal before offering the next. I know most people who are raising valuable specimens up for breeding tend to feed on a more aggressive pace. Some can handle more food than others is the simple truth, though. I personally find the Munson plan to be power feeding, simply for the large meal sizes. I feed smaller meals on a 4 day, personally. I also don't even try to get any female to size by her 2nd birthday, in spite of others who will be beating me to Palmetto hets and scaleless.

As for what it can do "to" your snake, I have never seen any indication that power fed snakes were any weaker or less vigorous in any way to their more slowly fed counterparts. Like Bitsy, I have my share that were, but I find fatties to be an individual thing, and not a permanently "geared up" metabolism. A corn in the wild in an area with abundant food is going to eat it. I have asked anyone to show me a fat baby snake for 10 years, and I have yet to see one. Overfeeding an adult or subadult is a different matter, certainly. Not to argue w/you, Bitsy, just differing experiences. I'd try your fat snakes weekly on very small prey items. I have had much better luck with that.

All of this said, a key to a healthy snake IMO is activity. A snake with a huge meal in its belly constantly is going to spend much of its time sitting and digesting. Some time spent pacing the cage and stretching & exercising muscles seems paramount to good musculature and development.
 
Old 01-12-2013, 05:13 PM   #5
Ryan Beatty
I'll admit I used to power feed many years ago when I first got into snakes. I've fed corns as often as every other day and had them at 300+ grams in a year. They were completely healthy, with no hips or fat deposits, laid perfect clutches and are still in my collection to this day over ten years later.

However I do agree a more moderate feeding schedule is much better for the snake and I feed my hold backs every 4 to 6 days and most still reach breeding size in 2 years.

I've also never seen an obese hatchling.

One reason people power feed is to try to get the jump on a new high end market such as the palmettos and scaleless corns. It's simple greed with no concern for the safety of the animals, in my opinion.
 
Old 01-12-2013, 06:15 PM   #6
chris68
I tend to slow grow mine; 4-7 days for babies (I mix it up), 1x a week for breeding females and 7-14 days for adults. My females take 3-4 years to get to where I'm comfortable to let them breed, and how much they weigh is just part of the decision. I've had yearling males breed successfully too...

I know breeders, large and small, that aggressively feed their prized morphs to "beat the pack" and their snakes seem to do fine, but it just doesn't seem healthy, and that's just my opinion
 
Old 01-12-2013, 06:34 PM   #7
DragonsDenSerpents
I don't do it. I feed every five days on pinks and peach fuzzies, then bump to six days on regular fuzzies. Seven days anything after that and breeding females. My boys are on every 14-21 days depending on the male. I use my SnakeKeeper app on my phone to alert me when each is due, and it's a huge help. They may not grow as fast, but they grow steadily. All of mine have good muscle tone, which I feel is more important to a breeding snake than pure weight is.
 
Old 01-13-2013, 02:28 PM   #8
Carpe Serpentis
I've read up on powerfeeding a bit and it reminds me of how much I used to eat as a teen. I'd eat a large pizza, a salad, and a pitcher of soda by myself at one sitting. But then I also ran 10-12 miles a day, lifted weights, etc... I was very lean, and yet I'd see another kid eating half of what I eat and he was in the morbidly obese category. To me, the whole subject is filled with several variables not the least of which is how old is the snake in question. With that being said, so long as the snake is not overly fat, I can not see any reason for not doing so personally, but the moment the health of the snake comes into question so does the practice.
 

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