Munson Plan

Who is Munson and how did he come up with his/her feeding plan? Is there scientific research behind the plan or is it based on imperical observation ect?

Roy Munson is Deano. He is a former Moderator on this site. The Munson plan is by no means, scientific. It's a good guideline to follow. I use a modified version of it on my collection.

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

Wayne

That's the person here whose user ID is "Roy Munson". It's been put together from may years of experience. A scientific approach might be difficult, as no two Corns react to the same feeding regime in quite the same way. What can be a maintenance routine for one, may cause another to pile on the pounds.

When in doubt, I always point to the Munson Plan as an excellent starting point. It can be tweaked if necessary - Corns don't read the rules, so it'd be a waste of time trying to impose a "one size fits all" solution and expect it to work exactly right for all of them. The Munson Plan is a way of feeding that usually does the trick.

The Munsonator was a God among us mortals.... He walked head and shoulders above the flock and gave us his words to live by....
Then he ascended to a fauna heaven...... But it is said that one day he may walk amongst us again... In his earthly form...

Mike's going to hell. Mike's going to hell.

wade said:

Mike's going to hell. Mike's going to hell.

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I have seen that his plan is quoted out side this forum so it has spread. The weight guide lines are certainly helpful.

The Munson Plan is great provided that optimum temperatures are maintained, as well as other standard good husbandry practices are in place. Personally, I kind of follow it during the warm months, and utilize it for snakes I am in a hurry (those with artificial winter heat) to get to adulthood. For snakes that are "just pets", I do not follow it, but then, for those (pet) individuals, they don't get the artificial heat. So for me, it depends on what my personal goals are with the individual snakes. And sometimes I feed more often, if it's a gravid female, I'll give her more but smaller meals more often, - or if it's a young male I'm pushing to reach maturity, he may get smaller meals more often. The Munson Plan is an excellent guideline.

snakewispera snr said:

The Munsonator was a God among us mortals.... He walked head and shoulders above the flock and gave us his words to live by....
Then he ascended to a fauna heaven...... But it is said that one day he may walk amongst us again... In his earthly form...

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What he said!

You're dang right the Munson Plan has spread beyond this forum. It's probably the most widely-tested generalized snake feeding plan out there. It goes a step beyond "One to One and a Half Times the Diameter of the Snake at its Widest Part." The Munson Plan allows you to weight the snake, weigh the mouse, and match them up exactly.

I feed the Munson Plan and feature it in my caresheet. I find the mouse sizes on The Munson Plan to be generous- they must be mice from a superiour frozen mouse supplier, namely The Mouse Factory. This is why I appreciate the weight range of prey that is shown by The Munson Plan.

I adhere to The Munson Plan conservatively; I let the snakes get several grams over the "weight requirement" before moving to the next step, and start with the smallest individual representative of a prey size for the first feeding of that size. It works wonderfully for me.

dpcorns said:

The Munson Plan is great provided that optimum temperatures are maintained, as well as other standard good husbandry practices are in place. Personally, I kind of follow it during the warm months, and utilize it for snakes I am in a hurry (those with artificial winter heat) to get to adulthood. For snakes that are "just pets", I do not follow it, but then, for those (pet) individuals, they don't get the artificial heat. So for me, it depends on what my personal goals are with the individual snakes. And sometimes I feed more often, if it's a gravid female, I'll give her more but smaller meals more often, - or if it's a young male I'm pushing to reach maturity, he may get smaller meals more often. The Munson Plan is an excellent guideline.

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My goal is simply good health for the snake. I do tend to under feed all of my animals no matter the species as this is more healthy than over feeding. Humans have a strange propensity to want to feed things to death. I guess this is related to some long ingrained genetic memory from when we had to endure times of famine. But anyway I wonder if you could let the snake tell you when to feed? What I mean is that when the snake gets hungry he starts moving around the cage more and is more active when he is handled. I wonder if this could be a good way to avoid over and under feeding and also a way to cater to his hunting instinct?

The problem with your plan to feed the snake as soon as it starts moving around is I've noticed with babies, mine are out moving around 24-48 hours after a meal. That is way too soon to feed again. Older snakes will appear a day or two before their scheduled feeding days, maybe. Some never come out. I wouldn't consider The Munson Plan to be over-feeding, by any means. More like optimal feeding, as opposed to maintenance feeding. Once the snake reaches adulthood, you adjust the feeding schedule to that particular snake and its growth rate. Some are easy keepers and only need to eat every two weeks. Other snakes get too snippy and miserable to be fed that infrequently.

I wonder if you could let the snake tell you when to feed? What I mean is that when the snake gets hungry he starts moving around the cage more and is more active when he is handled. I wonder if this could be a good way to avoid over and under feeding and also a way to cater to his hunting instinct?

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In the wild, snakes would be hunting for food all the time when not digesting. Thing is, out there, they might find it once every ten days if they're lucky. They continue the hunting behaviour in captivity so if we feed them every time we see them doing it, we risk ending up with scaly blimps!

They need to spend time ranging around their tanks, as this is good exercise and keeps their muscle tone up. Their hunting instinct is a great way of encouraging this. If they're continually digesting, then they're not mobile enough to stay healthy.