today we're gonna talk a little bit more about feeding your snake so previously we put out the
video about we'll say you know what should I feed my snake so you know we talked a little bit about
you know that most the time we're feeding rodents usually mice or rats but you know maybe there's
some alternatives depending on the snake and all that but this time I want to talk a little bit
about how often was she when you should feed your snake because that's a little bit of a debatable
subject and it's a little controversial today with me we have Delta here she's our motley boa
constrictor so she's a motley bull Emperor Artur for the BI she's just gonna be out for because you
know it's probably nice to have some you know reptiles in these reptile videos when I'm just
kind of standing here yakking at you guys so you know we talked you know I mentioned kind of what
what you're feeding the snake so in this video we're gonna be talking about how often should we
feed the snake so for a very long time the kind of standard rule of thumb has always been once
a week but as it turns out a lot of the time that isn't actually necessarily the best way
to do it it's just an easier convenient way for us it that way you can say you know okay it's
Wednesday Wednesday's Wednesday's feeding day but as we've done a little bit more research
we've had them longer and we've you know take a note of wild populations and you know different
ways of doing things we're actually trying to work we're starting to see that you know there
are other ways to do it and so that's what I want to talk a little bit about is you know a couple
different ways that are a little bit different before so right off the bat the seven-day you
know once every seven days once a week thing that can be fine but it is necessarily the only way
so if you guys you know most of most people have ball pythons corns snakes feeding once
every week perfectly fine but for instance say we have this ball constrictor Delta here so Delta is
a boa constrictor they have slower metabolisms because they have slower metabolisms that mean
that what that means is that when they eat a rat or whatever it is that you're feeding her
it's gonna take a little bit longer for her to break that down absorb the nutrients from that
and from that prey item and then for her to pass it sometimes it can take over a full week for her
to fully metabolize small rat so if I'm feeding once a week that means she's eating before she's
done fully digesting and passing the previous prey item from the week previous so for you
know a sub-adult older boa like this girl here maybe once every ten to fourteen days might feel
a little bit better and that kind of seems to be the thinking of a lot of people these days
is that you know for older reptiles you know once they're past maturity they're intraductal
they've attained adult size you know back off the feeding a little bit you know instead of feeding
once every seven days they're feeding once every you know 10 or 14 days you know for our large book
instructors you know we like like severus that we've seen in a couple other videos before she
only gets fed once every three to four weeks because she's not breeding she's an adult she
was actually a little trouble the time yeah so I don't like the face kisses Delta you know she
only gets fed every so often if she's perfectly fine I don't have any you know negative issues
with me opening up the tub or the enclosure that she's in she's never coming out and striking for
food she knows when food is coming and that kind of prolong thing is perfectly acceptable you know
there are a lot of people now who have started to think about seasonal feeding and so when I
meant to talk about seasonal feeding what that is is that you know out in the wild in certain
populations around the world and pop in snake populations there are times of the year where
prey is very plentiful in time of the year where it's very scarce or even non-existent so for
instance Hog Island boughs that's a subspecies of the BOA imperartors they're found on island
off the coast of South America on island obviously what happens in places like that or other Island
Boas where but most of their prey is birds and those come in seasonally lay their eggs so the
same time of year every year of large population of birds come to the island and nest and have
their babies during those months while those birds are present on the island the snakes will feast on
all of those birds that are coming in between the birds and the baby chicks and things like that and
then they leave and then for the most part they don't really eat the rest of the year they've
actually monitored things like that and they've seen that some I own locality snakes they will
eat very heavily for three or four months and then they will sometimes only have one or two meals the
rest of the year and they're perfectly healthy and so some people keeping me hobby are starting
to feed seasonally you're where they'll feed you know from March to August very heavily and
then they'll just entirely go off really really slow to where they're nothing in the brumation
periods and then they start to bring that up again for breeding season so it's maybe something that
we can think about is you know let's change it up a little bit and a lot of it has to do kind
of the species of it so for instance colubrid species they have a lot of higher metabolisms
you can probably feed more often like the seven you know once every seven days every seven to
ten days pythons they're a lot heavier body but their metabolisms are a little faster than like
something like a boa constrictor here so you know seven days is you know probably still okay for a
lot of people have ball pythons or smaller things like spotted sore Stimson's Python but once you
get up into larger things like for instance if you do have a large constrictor like a Burmese
python or something like that meaning once a week it's kind of a lot for something like that then
you're gonna get a very heavy Opie snake so maybe dialing that back and a lot of this kind of has to
do with monitoring and watching the behavior and what your snake is looking like you know there's
a nice neat little thing about what you eat which each type of snake looks like when it's healthy
boa constrictors here like Delta they have kind of a really square look and once you start getting
around bo that means you're getting obese and when that happens that can cause a lot of damage and
strain on their internal organs which can shorten their lifespan so that's not something we want
another thing to think about is the age of the snake so for baby snakes they're gonna be needing
to eat a lot more often than adult snakes so even me who feeds you know pretty slow and a little bit
more more sparingly so for our ball pythons they feed once every you know ten to fourteen days and
the bows are every 14 to 20 days that's just something that we like to do and you know will
vary it depending on the time of the year for raising him up for breeding we're gonna hit him
a little bit more often because that's something that you need to think about and with breeding
and stuff like that which we'll talk about in another video but you know for babies we'll be
feeding them five to seven days depending on the species you know for a small little colubrids like
her baby gray man he's even eating every five six days where our baby boa and our baby ball pythons
they're eating once every seven to ten days just like the other guys where they're eating a little
bit more often but we'll be a little bit more adherent to that where I know a lot of people
who have been you know breeding snakes for a very very long time and over the past four or five
years they've just been kind of feeding yeah you know once every once or twice a month except for
one comes tight inbreeding times and their snakes are perfectly healthy they're maintaining great
weight and their temperaments and everything else are really great too so this is just something I
wanted to put out there a little bit hopefully it wasn't too too ranting with you guys I was trying
to keep it on the shorter side that this is just something for you know kind of think about do a
little bit more research other than just listening to me talk about this because I've been I've had
snakes for a number of years now but I haven't been doing it for for a very very long time I
just like to do a lot of research hopefully you guys do too and so when you're doing research
thinking about you know what kind you differently what kind of better feeding your snake is a pretty
basic easy one that you guys can think about and so you know if you look at a bunch of other people
doing different things we've all seen the very fat snakes on YouTube and stuff like that you know
something's probably not okay with that but you also don't want to have a you know really skinny
on healthy snake - so just do your research something to think about and that's what this
video is about again sorry to repeat it so much but you know it's just to get you guys thinking
there's other things to think about mostly the age of the snake the species of the snake how you want
to do it are you trying to maintain it like how it would be done naturally in the wild like seasonal
feeding or something that's just a little bit more easier for you so that way you can maintain a nice
easy schedule as long as it's not a detriment to the snake's health hopefully you guys did enjoy
this video or at least got something out of it a little bit or something to think about please
like and subscribe if you can hit that Bell notification big big thanks to a couple of you
guys who have actually come out and reached out to me asking me questions there's someone who may ask
me a question about what possibly a Florida King Saint was and I you know told them my best answer
to that big big things to you I'm sorry I can't exactly remember your name today but hopefully
you're still watching these videos too and if you guys have any other questions or comments
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questions the best of my ability hope you guys are having a great day and I'll check the next time