OH NO! I have eggs.

[Tula_Montage]

And my point was that at 2 years old those particular females are on the smaller side....and you're not going to run into the issue of obese snake that creates a huge array of breeding problems.

700 gram obese, fatty snakes with no muscle tone are going to have problems as breeders. I am not going to feed a snake so it gets anywhere near that level. I NEVER said that I don't feed my snakes in an effort to keep them small, and I have no idea where in the heck you would have picked that up in my post.

Obese animals will always have trouble reproducing, I absolutly agree with that. But like I said to Steph, how do you measure obesity in corn snakes. I think 700 grams would be a fantastic weight for a 5yr+ 4 1/2 - 5 ft female. Corns don't stop growing... do you have any retired female breeders that have surpased your 300 gram criteria?

And I would agrue that many corns are fully grown at 350 grams. Just because your single adult female isn't 350 grams doesn't make it the rule. I can guarantee you that most of my adult females are between 275 and 400 grams, and I've yet to have a single egg binding problem. If skipping a meal or two along the way keeps them from getting 600 grams and fat ridden, then I'm certainly going to do it. They don't need to eat a 'moose' every 7 days to be healthy. Males....sure, stuff em away. They don't need to be 'fit and trim' to be good breeders, but females definitely do.

Perhaps because we keep corns for different reasons you have not allowed your females to get larger for various reasons, yours being breeding. I actually knew someone who kept his breeders under 300 grams due to space, these small corns took up less space than 500-700 gram specimens. That is ridiculous to me....

I certainly don't think snakes NEED to be fed weekly, heck I feed very sporadically with the younger corns and especially the boas, sometimes only twice a month or smaller than average prey items. I like lean snakes, but I do not feed them less to keep them within a 350 gram target. If they surpas that whilst keeping a good muscle tone then whats the problem?

Why at least 400 grams? So you're not going to breed a healthy, muscle toned female at 300 or 350 grams?

When I look at a 300 gram female I think "is that thing capable of breeding?". The answer is yes, however I would just prefer larger and older females. If any of my females hit 300 grams within 2 years I would wait until the third year and hope she had gained another 100 grams before breeding. I think age:weight ratio is just as important.

I have an 06 300 gram anery lass that is gravid from the previous owner. I am slightly annoyed. I would never have chosen to breed her at that age or weight. It's simply my preferance. I am sure she will be fine as she has fantastic muscle tone. I don't care if none of my snakes ever lay eggs. But lets face it, it seems many people on here would not keep the snakes they do if breeding were not an option.

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

And even though your snakes aren't fat, people still do not find out information before getting a snake?

What?



(typing for minimum words)

 

[alan]

That's my point. What... was the thread about?

 

[Tula_Montage]

Severely obese snakes will have "hips"...Fugly had some bad hips when I first got her and dieting here and while she's been with Dean has decreased them. They will also be cushy and just disproportioned their circumference versus their length. These are cornsnakes, not ball pythons. None of my snakes are obese (except Fugly was when I first got her, but she's much better now), so I can't provide example photos.

I have an 06 300 gram female with very small hips. Shes very lean, well proportioned and extremely fit. Shes not obese but still has little fatty deposits near her vent that you can barley see but you can deffinatley feel. I don't think "hips" are necessarily an indication of obeseity they are just fat stores.

 

[Roy Munson]

Personally, I AM already taking measures to limit the growth of my future female breeders. I suffered under the "bigger's better" delusion for a long time. I wish I'd listened to Carol and Susan years ago, but I guess I had to make my own mistakes. My smaller, more slender females all have laid without a hitch, and their clutch sizes were as big as I need them to be (15-20). I've had problems with bigger females, and I haven't seen a big increase in clutch number from larger snakes. I'd like to limit the growth of future breeder females to around 400g. That doesn't mean I'll starve them, but I'll be keeping a close eye on their appearance. Feeding plans and gram-weight progressions don't mean anything to me anymore. As for the males-- I've been doing my best to "stunt" them for a long time. They're lucky if I feed them at all. (Still, try to find a skinny snake in my collection...)

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

they are just fat stores

Exactly. What do you think fat in general is and what it causes?

 

[Tula_Montage]

You simply can't argue with success can you...

 

[Tula_Montage]

Exactly. What do you think fat in general is and what it causes?

Fat has to go somewhere doesn't it and not all fat is bad fat is it?

I just don't understand how one measures obesity in corn snakes. Is there some sort of BMI calculation LOL? Sure theres a certain look to overweight snakes. Take for instance my 3 year old 530 gram lavender lass, she sits in funny positions and flattens herself out and looks morbidly obese when coiled up until you pick her up and see that shes got a lovely flat tummy, fantastic muscle tone and is well proportioned. Oh and if you give her a rat (even a tiny pup) she bloats for about a week. It's quite disgusting really lol.

I would consider an obese corn snake to have a horribly small head in comparison to the thickest part of their body, a squishy round ventral, lumps, bumps and fat deposits, a slugish motion and of course raspy breathing. My friend rescued the most obese snake I have ever seen, over 2 kilos of creamsicle with a simply digusting amount of fat deposits (Ill get pictures). This snake was simply unwilling to move around, and when it was forced to move it was wheezing and struggling to breathe. Poor thing....

 

[ghosthousecorns]

Personally, I AM already taking measures to limit the growth of my future female breeders. I suffered under the "bigger's better" delusion for a long time. I wish I'd listened to Carol and Susan years ago, but I guess I had to make my own mistakes. My smaller, more slender females all have laid without a hitch, and their clutch sizes were as big as I need them to be (15-20). I've had problems with bigger females, and I haven't seen a big increase in clutch number from larger snakes. I'd like to limit the growth of future breeder females to around 400g. That doesn't mean I'll starve them, but I'll be keeping a close eye on their appearance. Feeding plans and gram-weight progressions don't mean anything to me anymore. As for the males-- I've been doing my best to "stunt" them for a long time. They're lucky if I feed them at all. (Still, try to find a skinny snake in my collection...)

If this is how you now feel, do you have any plans to revise the "Munson Plan"? A lot of people follow that to the letter and I have seen many members here advising others to do so.

I almost never use a scale anymore unless I am going to sell a snake - so I can give the weight information to the prospective buyers, other than that I kind of like to use the "loaf of bread" analogy to gauge the fitness of my corn snakes, 600 grams may be OK for one snake and obese for another.

 

[Tula_Montage]

If this is how you now feel, do you have any plans to revise the "Munson Plan"? A lot of people follow that to the letter and I have seen many members here advising others to do so.

I almost never use a scale anymore unless I am going to sell a snake - so I can give the weight information to the prospective buyers, other than that I kind of like to use the "loaf of bread" analogy to gauge the fitness of my corn snakes, 600 grams may be OK for one snake and obese for another.

I meant to bring this up in private earlier aswell (just incase Dean didn't want to answer publically). I found the Munson Plan a bit excessive for my snakes. After a month they were putting on too much weight too quickly and were looking quite chubby. I always find myself feeding small prey items. I don't think I would ever feed an ex breeder adult mouse (30 grams or so) to a corn snake again. My snakes could take them easily, but I find medium mooses are the perfect meal for any size of adult corn.

 

[diamondlil]

That's an interesting point, Jenn. I don't actually remember Deano recommending his plan, just explaining how he'd achieved growth rates. The plan (to me) is a good start for young snakes, but as they show their individual response any owner should learn to follow their own judgement as to how fat/lean etc the snakes are and adjust the feeding schedules accordingly.
My breeding females have been on 10-14 day scedules, the big boys have just come out of their breeding fast. As well as spacing the girls' feedings out so they roam about looking for food, I've been handling them so I can assess and hopefully help maintain their muscle-tone.

 

[Joejr14]

I meant to bring this up in private earlier aswell (just incase Dean didn't want to answer publically). I found the Munson Plan a bit excessive for my snakes. After a month they were putting on too much weight too quickly and were looking quite chubby. I always find myself feeding small prey items. I don't think I would ever feed an ex breeder adult mouse (30 grams or so) to a corn snake again. My snakes could take them easily, but I find medium mooses are the perfect meal for any size of adult corn.

I don't see why he'd need to revise it. It works perfectly fine, but it's not a perfect guide. You need to have some intelligence and be able to gauge how your snake(s) are progressing on it...and make adjustments.

I think the biggest problem is that people keep up with the same heavy feeding regimen once the snake hits 'adult size'. According to Don that's somewhere around 30"....so you just need to slam the brakes on and cut back on feedings when the snake gets that big.

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Fat has to go somewhere doesn't it and not all fat is bad fat is it?

Large fat deposits cause obesity.

I just don't understand how one measures obesity in corn snakes.

At this point, all else I can tell you is experience. Experience allows you to know if a snake is healthy and toned for its length versus obese. I don't make it a habit to measure my snakes, but compared to my height, I know the majority of my breeder females are no where near 5 foot in length, thus they shouldn't be super heavy. I have one adult male Ghost Stripe that I have no question is that long and he is easily double the weight of some of the females.

 

[Tula_Montage]

I don't see why he'd need to revise it. It works perfectly fine, but it's not a perfect guide. You need to have some intelligence and be able to gauge how your snake(s) are progressing on it...and make adjustments.

I think the biggest problem is that people keep up with the same heavy feeding regimen once the snake hits 'adult size'. According to Don that's somewhere around 30"....so you just need to slam the brakes on and cut back on feedings when the snake gets that big.

I agree. I think it's a fantastic plan for younger snakes, but as they mature you deffinatley need to work out their groth rates compared to food amounts. Prime example, I have an 07 anery stripe who weighs in at 170 grams. As a baby I followed the munson plan and he shot up to over 100 grams in 6 months. He was a chubby wee thing, but now is fed very sporadically, once every 10-14 days and has completely slimed out with fabulous muscle tone. Hes barley a year old and already on a diet (probably for the rest of his life) due to the way he just seems to pack away food, no matter how little it is lol.

 

[Tula_Montage]

Large fat deposits cause obesity.

Do they? I had an adult female sunglow motley with huge hips. She was a very slender snake who had never been overweight yet developed these hips after her first breeding season... Do you mean that obesity causes fat deposits, because that makes sense?

 

[ghosthousecorns]

I certainly meant no disrespect by asking it publicly. I think I have seen Dean mention how his feeding plan had taken on a life of its own, so it could be hard to change it if he even wanted to. The main thing is to also develop "an eye" for your snakes, you can stay within the parameters of his plan and increase the amount of days between feeding, for example, if you see a bit of chubbiness starting.

 

[Duff]

I found the Munson Plan a bit excessive for my snakes.

I remember raising concerns/doubts about the "Plan" in the past and being ripped apart every time (some of which I think still lingers on to this day, tbh). Funny how things turn out, eh

 

[Tula_Montage]

I remember raising concerns/doubts about the "Plan" in the past and being ripped apart every time (some of which I think still lingers on to this day, tbh). Funny how things turn out, eh

Well since it's the only plan of it's kind then what do you expect? If you REALLY don't like it write a new one? I didn't like it, so I changed it. Surley people should have the common sense to slow their snakes feeding down when it doubles in size every month LOL.

 

[Roy Munson]

If this is how you now feel, do you have any plans to revise the "Munson Plan"? A lot of people follow that to the letter and I have seen many members here advising others to do so.

I've thought about it, but as Janine pointed out, I don't think I've ever recommended the plan to anyone. I just got sick of answering a bunch of PMs asking what I do. The plan guidelines are fairly broad-- they don't take thinking out of the equation. Heck, if I followed Don Soderberg's publshed feeding recommendations to the letter, I'd have some FAT females. Still, I probably will revise it soon and eliminate the more aggressive end of the guidelines. And I agree with Elle about the jumbo/retired breeders. I wouldn't recommend feeding them to anything buy the HUGEST corns, and even then, it's probably not necessary. So I may take jumbos out of it altogether.

I remember raising concerns/doubts about the "Plan" in the past and being ripped apart every time (some of which I think still lingers on to this day, tbh). Funny how things turn out, eh

Oh, put your agenda away, dude. We're trying to have an adult conversation here. As always, if you have examples to back up your claims (in this case, being ripped apart for raising concerns about the plan), then provide them. If not, save the drama for your mama and go play elsewhere.

 

[Tula_Montage]

I wouldn't recommend feeding them to anything buy the HUGEST corns, and even then, it's probably not necessary. So I may take jumbos out of it altogether.
.

Oh finally someone who agrees LOL. I feel 30-40 gram meals are utterly unnecessary for adult corns, no matter how large they are. The last thing you want to do is feed a kilo of corn a 30 gram meal. They may be able to eat 60 gram rats nevermind mice, but as they age and do get that huge you really ought to be feeding a survival instead of growth diet for the sake of that snakes health. Thats not to be confused with keeping young snakes on a survival or stunted diet who have many more years of healthy growth left in them.

I made a huge mistake by feeding Lacey weaner rats after coming out of brumation, and I do think she was slightly overweight during her first clutch of eggs. Now she has dropped 70 grams (although it doesnt look like it) and has only fed 3 times on a 14-18 gram medium moose since laying her first clutch I think she has a far better chance of laying second time round without problems.