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Determining food size for LARGE snakes: Math or experience?

Amanda47

Amanda47

New member
I know approximately what and when to feed my corn snake because there are charts telling me. I can tweak it a little, but I have a good base to build on.

I've been wanting a larger snake (or three) but haven't been able to find anything similar to the Munson plan's feeding guidelines. So how did the Munson plan come around? How do people know how much to feed their boas and pythons?

Is this knowledge one can only get from someone else, passed from snake owner to owner? Do they have to figure it out themselves over time, seeing if the snake is getting fat or thin and adjusting it as needed? Or is there a mathematical solution, like 3.8% of the snake's weight?

I've watched big-snake feeding videos where people say they used to feed 6 jumbo rats, but now they're feeding two adult ducks. How do they know that's enough (and not too much or too little)?
 
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Would you mind if we move this thread to GCC and re title it? People aren't going to look because they think it's a cornsnake question, and they've seen a million of those. It belongs there anyway.
 
Don't really know the answer to this one either, none of my snakes are super large but I do pretty much just eye ball it and adjust by how they look, if they start putting on too much weight or not enough. With a bit of experience, that seems to work pretty good and don't really have to think about it much.
 
It's mostly an owner's judgement. For ball pythons, a general guideline is 10-15% of the snake's weight once a week. So a 1200 gram BP would get a rat weighing between 120-180 grams.

For my BCI boas, I started off with this guide (scroll down a bit to get to the feeding section): http://www.redtailboas.com/content/119-part-3-ultimate-boa-constrictor-care-guide-view-online.html
My two boys are adults, but on 3 week intervals, because otherwise they'd hurt their noses hunting the cage. I know that for BCC boas (true red-tails) you don't want a lump afterward. I watch their body shape to make sure they don't get fat. A healthy weight boa will be shaped like a loaf of bread, not rounded, and have nice muscle tone, rather than squishy sides.
 
This thread reminded me of something I read in "What's Wrong With My Snake?" by John Rossi D.V.M, M.A and Roxanne Rossi.

It says that studies of temperate zone snakes in the wild consume approximately two to four times their body weight in a year. More active snakes would consume four times their weight and less active snakes would only consume about two times their weight. This is taking into consideration an 8 month period of inactivity and a 4 month period of brumation.

So using this as a guideline, and taking into consideration the lazy lifestyle of captive snakes, a one pound snake would need 18 50 gram mice a year. This translates to one mouse every two weeks as a base line, obviously a more active snake, a growing snake, or one used for breeding would require more food.

It also has another formula, this one a little more mathy. I admit I don't entirely understand it so I'll just type it up word for word.

"Using another approach, one can calculate the energy requirement of a snake based upon it's metabolic rate. The energy required in Kcals equals ten times the animal's body weight in kilograms to the 0.75 power. Hence, a one pound snake (0.45kg) would require 5.5 Kcals per day. Because a mouse is known to contain about 85Kcal, one mouse would meet the energy requirements of a one pound snake for 15 days, or approximately two weeks (Madder, 1993), excluding energy for growth or reproductions."

SO I guess this information helps if you know the Kcals of your food item like rats/guinea pigs/whatever you feed. Though I'm not sure how that would be adjusted for south american snakes like BCIs which I don't think brumate in the wild? Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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