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[richardduckworth]

but with captive born snakes, a lot of gut flora is totally unbalanced. especially in sterile settings. you simply can't mimic "the wild" without the whole thing being wild, but in captivity, stress will take a normally balanced gut and make it dangerous to the animal's health.

they're all wild but captives IMO, because they simply haven't lost those instincts yet and won't for many, many generations.

i've always treated each snake as an individual and with BCCs, you have to assume that they're less stable when it comes to eating. you can do it ALL perfectly right, but they'll still regurge, whereas some species will simply take everything you give them.

a lot of western rattlesnakes are much more high strung than your average alabama timber rattler is. they even flick their tongue differently. they've evolved to be as threatening as they can possibly be. that wasn't as high on the priority list for the timbers (canebrakes) due to the environment, native wildlife, etc. .....these snakes are more likely to regurge than an old canebrake is. in the wild, they're less likely to lay there and not make a sound, totally relying on their camouflage either.

BCCs are simply different than BCIs too. what works for one may not work for the other.

if you feed your snakes the bare minimum, they'll be less of a "display" animal and will probably live longer.

these animals are simply not companion-material and are MAINLY meant to be looked at and to be impressive. i've never faulted people for wanting a large snake, just like i don't fault those who feed once a month or 10x a year. fair or not, these snakes are here to improve their owner's quality of lives. it's like beef cattle, they'd maybe not exist if not for the demand to do a certain thing, fair or natural or nice or not.

the thing that interests me the most right now is color and locale, so i feed mine every couple of weeks. i don't like fat snakes (totally round) but i don't want one that is on the thin side either.

technically, you'd have to feed less than "what is natural" since they don't have to go looking for food. it's just impossible to totally mimic nature. that's the beauty of it to me and that's why i take pictures of nature and aim for simplicity at home.