I posted a message recently about how I did a little experiment with my 8 month old, 2 ft. long okeetee corn. He was eating 2 peach fuzzies, originally. Then I switched over to fuzzies. I was just curious about whether he could handle 2 or not, so instead of feeding him just one which is what I usually would have done, I fed him 2 instead...just as an experiment. Well, he handled the 2 larger fuzzies with NO PROBLEM. Needless to say I was surprised. I called Kathy Love and asked her if I should continue to feed him this amount, and she said that as long as he ate em and didn't regurge, that it would be ok to continue with 2 fuzzies once a week.
This makes me wonder if I am doing what is called "powerfeeding". I started thinking about powerfeeding in reference to rats. I mean...if you think about it....you have the rats that you see in the pet store, and then you have the SEWER RATS that you see in the New York City subway system. They are both technically "rats", HOWEVER the ones in NYC are HUGE compared to the ones in the pet store. What is the difference?? Well, I would argue that to attain such a huge size, the rats in NYC sewers engage in a natural form of "powerfeeding". I would also argue that this applies to reptiles, too. If for example, a corn snake just happens to be born in an area, such as a barn which is INFESTED with mice, then it would have NO PROBLEM finding food and it would attain a very large size. This is probably what happens when people capture snakes in the wild which are "recordbreakers" like the HUGE anacondas of South America. Granted, anacondas are naturally large snakes, but there have been some caught in the wild which were large EVEN FOR a snake of this species. I have also seen on nature shows where the host captures a snake in the wild and remarks about how UNUSUALLY FAT the snake is compared to the norm. My point here is that it doesn't always follow that JUST BECAUSE the snake is in the wild, that there is ALWAYS a scarcity of prey. I am not arguing in favor of powerfeeding necessarily, but I wonder about the wisdom in assuming that feeding a little bit more than necessary is always a bad thing?? I would never feed my snake any more than once a week, by the way because I do believe that feeding them more frequently is bad news. But as far as LARGER MEALS goes, I think its ok to feed them as large a meal as they can handle. Just wondering what you guys think. Again, I'm not really taking a hard stand on this....I'm just debating the issue.
This makes me wonder if I am doing what is called "powerfeeding". I started thinking about powerfeeding in reference to rats. I mean...if you think about it....you have the rats that you see in the pet store, and then you have the SEWER RATS that you see in the New York City subway system. They are both technically "rats", HOWEVER the ones in NYC are HUGE compared to the ones in the pet store. What is the difference?? Well, I would argue that to attain such a huge size, the rats in NYC sewers engage in a natural form of "powerfeeding". I would also argue that this applies to reptiles, too. If for example, a corn snake just happens to be born in an area, such as a barn which is INFESTED with mice, then it would have NO PROBLEM finding food and it would attain a very large size. This is probably what happens when people capture snakes in the wild which are "recordbreakers" like the HUGE anacondas of South America. Granted, anacondas are naturally large snakes, but there have been some caught in the wild which were large EVEN FOR a snake of this species. I have also seen on nature shows where the host captures a snake in the wild and remarks about how UNUSUALLY FAT the snake is compared to the norm. My point here is that it doesn't always follow that JUST BECAUSE the snake is in the wild, that there is ALWAYS a scarcity of prey. I am not arguing in favor of powerfeeding necessarily, but I wonder about the wisdom in assuming that feeding a little bit more than necessary is always a bad thing?? I would never feed my snake any more than once a week, by the way because I do believe that feeding them more frequently is bad news. But as far as LARGER MEALS goes, I think its ok to feed them as large a meal as they can handle. Just wondering what you guys think. Again, I'm not really taking a hard stand on this....I'm just debating the issue.
...peace and enjoy