Healthy weight?

[RyanPierce]

New BP owner here.

I acquired a 6yo male, about 3 1/2 feet. I'm thinking he might be significantly underfed. His previous owner had been feeding live adult mice every 7-10 days. I've had him 6 weeks, and in that time fed him 3 frozen large mice. (The plan was to feed weekly, but he needed time to get settled, then a shedding, and a missed meal.) He's scheduled for a feeding tomorrow.

Everyone I've talked to says his isn't being fed large enough food, and that mice aren't that nutritious. I found a local breeder and acquired frozen medium ASFs for him. But when the breeder showed me his snakes, I realized just how, for lack of a better term, full they felt. My BP's skin is very loose by comparison, and he seems smaller in diameter.

I got a digital scale and finally weighed him. 882 grams.

Any thoughts? What should he weigh? I trust I'm doing the right thing by switching his diet like this.

Also, in the 6 weeks I've had him, I haven't seen anything I'd recognize as defecation.

[interloc]

Balls grow slow sometimes and the males tend to stay smaller. So he doesn't sound extremely thin.


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[AK907]

Pics would help a lot, but even the largest mice are a very small meal for an 882g ball. Your snake should be eating rats in 90-130g range (give or take a gram). Large adult mice are usually in the 30-40g range with the exceptional retired breeder pushing 50g. I would also advise feeding him on a 7 day schedule.

And while its true that males tend to be lankier and overall smaller than female balls, 882g is pretty small for a 6 year old male. I've got males that was 1/3 of his age and twice his weight.

[decensored]

That's relatively small but if he's only 3 1/2 feet he doesn't sound significantly underweight for that length. It's very small for a 6 y/o however. But I've had a 2 year old that was 350 grams before and he was fine.

You'll want to feed 10-15 percent of it's body weight every 7 days but if your having trouble finding prey Items that big you can try multiples, or a shorter feeding scehdual. I have some of mine on ASF and they are taking 3 every 5 days. Mind you the asf's are around 45-50 grams and the snake is 2000+ grams.

Long and short of it is, say you have 50 gram ASF. A bp at 900 grams needs 90 grams of prey per week. Which would equate to about 2 asf a week, or one very large one every 5 days.

Cheers,
Chris

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