Can you over feed a snake?

[squirly]

its probably a relatively obvious answer however...

Had Blade (Northen Pine Snake) for over 2 months now, and he is getting through fluffy hoppers at a rate of knots!

He had 5 Hoppers on thursday all struck with ease and wolfed down in seconds. They are an easy 1.5-2 inches. Left me a huge dollop of poop today (would give a dog a run for his money), so when i came to fee my corn snake, thought i would try him again just to see, and he guzzled another 4 hoppers similar sized, struck with ease!

i was told to feed him once a week.

I thought he would only feed if hungry just like my corn snake but god NO!

any thoughts?

[JoeR]

Um.....one appropriate sized food item a week...then when the snake is fully grown the same rule applies but every ten days.....
I think your feeding a bit much.

[Jczreptiles]

Yes they can easily be over fed, why not go up a size instead of feeding 5 in one go? How old is he and how often is he eating this many mice? They don't always eat because they are hungry but because in the wild they don't know when the next meal is coming so they stock up on fat reserves, in captivity these will just continue to grow.

[martymg1]

Agreed with above I would try upping the size of the mouse and see how it goes. 9 in one week is rather a lot

[Rich H]

Depending on the age of your snake you could be causing premature growth shortening the lifespan and obesity for sure, you need to feed 1 appropriately sized food item.

[TWGarland]

Yup sounds like your over feeding to me. As people have said, snakes are oppurtunistic by nature and will take advantage of multiple prey items if they can.

Sustained over feeding really messes with internal organs, swelling of liver etc. Not to mention the obvious.... obescity. Its far harder for a snake to loose weight than it is for it to put it on. You should keep that in mind.

Again as others have said one appropriately sized prey item a week/5 days is ALL it needs.

[helraiizza]

and 1 large weaner rat will be a darn site cheaper than 5 fuzzies

[Jczreptiles]

Heres a good example of an overweight snake Obese Boa L@@K- Biggest I've seen so far :(

[helraiizza]

Originally Posted by Jczreptiles

Heres a good example of an overweight snake Obese Boa L@@K- Biggest I've seen so far :(

i bet you took ages searching the RFUK archives

[Jczreptiles]

Originally Posted by helraiizza

i bet you took ages searching the RFUK archives

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