Hey, I'm wondering what the approximate age of my new BP might be. He is about 18" long but not very big, his thickest page is only slightly bigger than a adult males thumb.

Now for my feeding question, I've read that 6-10 days it a good feeding time frame. I bought him last Saturday and the pet store hadn't fed him at all because they only got him the day before. I tried using a F/T that I bought on Monday but he didn't seem to have any interest in it. I decided to try again with a F/T on Tuesday but again with no luck, it was certainly warm enough but the snake wouldn't even look at it. Whenever I dangled the mouse a few inches in front of him he'd just turn away.

I decided to get a live feeder mouse instead, at first it was just to get the scent around and try the F/T but I still had no luck so I decided to feed him the live mouse. I put the live mouse in a 10g tank with him and within two minutes the mouse was dead and the snake began eating. Unfortunately he tried to eat the mouse backwards and it got stuck, I watched him struggle for over an hour trying to swallow the mouse but there was no way that was going to happen because the rear legs were on either side of his mouth acting like a anchor. I decided to try and remove the mouse, and did so carefully as to not hurt him. I figured he wouldn't eat the mouse then because I thought be might be frighten but once I dangled the mouse in front of him head first he took it right away and swallowed it down in less than 2 minutes.

I've noticed that his skin is a little loose in places, it isn't much but I've heard that this could mean he is over fed. So I decided to try another mouse today, even though it has only been four days since his last. Well the good news is he took him after smelling around for a few minutes, got him head first and swallowed him down. I have him 10 minutes to settle and then moved him back to his terrarium (I feed in a separate 10g).

Anyway I just wanted to make sure I'm doing everything right, I'm really excited to have this new snake and want to make sure I'm giving him the proper care. I plan on feeding him on Saturdays from her on out and I'm very enthusatic about his feeding so far because I know BPs can be picky eaters and having him eat twice in 5 days seems like a good sign on his future eating habits.

Any advice would be awesome.

Thanks.