Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

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Bob
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Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

Post by Bob »

Anyone have any good data or links to studies on snake feed to gain ratios?
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Bryan Hamilton
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Re: Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

Post by Bryan Hamilton »

I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

Some basic feeding trials I'm doing with with captive Crotalus lutosus (n= two snakes), indicate that 25- 40% of prey mass is converted to snake mass. I'm sure this varies quite a bit.
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monklet
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Re: Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

Post by monklet »

I keep meal and snake weight records using the SerpenTrack.com system.

This link is to my collection. Clicking on the "Details" link for any given specimen will bring up a graph along with other data for most of the animals. I've been doing this for almost 2 years now and the younger snakes certainly show some interesting trends.
http://serpentrack.com/?c=browse&a=coll ... =keepers_1

Very generally I'd say that juvenile snakes commonly add about 30% of their meal weight in body mass. This conversion rate slows as they mature and as expected, mature animals more or less stablize or fluctuate according to life rythyms, unless grossly over fed, which I attempt to avoid.

Granted, these records of captive snakes so may not reliably infer natural situations. Nevertheless, it is certainly interesting to me and hopefully to others.

btw, SerpenTrack.com is open to all and anyone is welcome to enter one or all their captive snakes both to create your own collection gallery and track your snake husbandry events.

Brad
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Bob
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Re: Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

Post by Bob »

monklet wrote:I keep meal and snake weight records using the SerpenTrack.com system.

This link is to my collection. Clicking on the "Details" link for any given specimen will bring up a graph along with other data for most of the animals. I've been doing this for almost 2 years now and the younger snakes certainly show some interesting trends.
http://serpentrack.com/?c=browse&a=coll ... =keepers_1

Very generally I'd say that juvenile snakes commonly add about 30% of their meal weight in body mass. This conversion rate slows as they mature and as expected, mature animals more or less stablize or fluctuate according to life rythyms, unless grossly over fed, which I attempt to avoid.

Granted, these records of captive snakes so may not reliably infer natural situations. Nevertheless, it is certainly interesting to me and hopefully to others.

btw, SerpenTrack.com is open to all and anyone is welcome to enter one or all their captive snakes both to create your own collection gallery and track your snake husbandry events.


Brad
Thanks. I would assume that juveniles would have a better conversion rate than adults just as livestock do. (30% would put snakes on par with pigs but behind chickens.) Snakes obviously are much more efficient at garnering calories from food items than perhaps any other animal.

Snakes in the wild certainly would have a variable rate of gain based on environment, age, sex and breeding status, but there would be a norm within a certain demographic of a population. What I'm on about is recording individual weights at the den both spring and fall of non breeding juveniles, and by backing in the correct formula determining how much feed intake actually occurred during a growing season.

Just curious if this sort of work had been done, can't find any.
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Don Becker
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Re: Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

Post by Don Becker »

monklet wrote:I keep meal and snake weight records using the SerpenTrack.com system.
I always read it as SerpentRack.com :P
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monklet
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Re: Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

Post by monklet »

psyon wrote:
monklet wrote:I keep meal and snake weight records using the SerpenTrack.com system.
I always read it as SerpentRack.com :P
Well, here's a real Serpent Rack...
Image

... but glad you caught the word play Don :)
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Bob
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Re: Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

Post by Bob »

Are those real.....










































snakes?
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Daryl Eby
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Re: Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

Post by Daryl Eby »

Bob wrote:Are those real.....
They look real. I'd have to handle them to be sure.
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monklet
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Re: Snake feed conversion ratio Q.

Post by monklet »

Quite frankly, I believe those would be designer morphs.
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