Q about small female

[hoho19]

I have a small female. She's currently 221 grams. She's been gaining about 12 grams a week since christmas. She is currently in blue and will shed in the next couple days. Should I breed her when she does that and feed every 5 days for the next month or should I wait and feed her every 5 days for the next month and then breed her at her next shed?

 

[Shiari]

You really should wait until she's at least 300 grams and 3 years old. That gives her full time to mature... It's rather like how a 7month old female cat often *can* have a litter... but it's a really poor idea for her to have one then. Sexual maturity does not equal physical maturity.

 

[Em Wright]

Very true Shiari. It's like teenagers getting pregnant. They CAN, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't.

 

[hoho19]

With 30 days of feeding she will be 300 grams. She is also approximately 3 years. I was told she is an '05 when I bought her.

 

[Shiari]

12 grams/wk x 4 weeks = 48 gram increase. Your snake is 220. That does not equal 300 grams. And shoving that much *fat* onto the snake is not going to help it. And work, when dosing an obese animal, we don't go by their weight... but rather by what they *should* weigh. So powerfeeding isn't going to give you an *actual* 300 gram animal. It's going to give you a 200-something gram animal coated in a giant layer of fat.

Be kind to your snake, give her another year of normal, steady feedings so she is a snake and not a blob when you go to breed her.