Overfeeding my BP?

So here is my question, am I overfeeding?
I've been following the general rule of thumb of choosing rats that are not much bigger than your snakes widest area, thing is I finally got a scale and starting weighing.
My BP weighs 178g, and the rat that looked like the right sizes was 44g. is that to big? He has been eating once a week and never skips a meal. Thanks

I try to stick to feeders that weigh 10-15% of my snakes total weight. But I feed every 5 days. IMO it was a little on the big side but nothing to worry about.

What about if I feed a 215g BP a 44g rat weanling?

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Originally Posted by FkNdRk

So here is my question, am I overfeeding?
I've been following the general rule of thumb of choosing rats that are not much bigger than your snakes widest area, thing is I finally got a scale and starting weighing.
My BP weighs 178g, and the rat that looked like the right sizes was 44g. is that to big? He has been eating once a week and never skips a meal. Thanks

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I would say that is a bit big, but nothing extreme. If he is a healthy eater and you are giving him the proper husbandry and alone time to digest he will be just fine. I feed my males about once ever 7 to 10 days once they are adults and females once every 5 or so. At the size yours is now I was feeding once every week.

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Originally Posted by RetiredJedi

What about if I feed a 215g BP a 44g rat weanling?

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That is fine. Tipping the 20% mark for those that say 10-15% of your snakes body weight. I lightly stick to that rule of thumb, I lean more towards prey items that are around the same thickness of the thickest part or my snake.

OK, so this may sound like a realy dumb question but I'm gonna ask anyway. Please hold your laughter to a minimum...does a frozen rat right out of the freezer weigh any different than one that I took out and let thaw? Does the moisture in the body affect it?

I actually googled, "Does ice weigh more than water?" and the answers go back and forth. So will the frozen moisture in the body of the rat change the weight of the rat once it thaws?

The difference between weighing your prey item frozen or thawed is not noticeable. For your record keeping a gram here or there is no big deal.

If you can consistantly see the skin in between the scales, then you are overfeeding because they are getting fat.

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OK, so this may sound like a realy dumb question but I'm gonna ask anyway. Please hold your laughter to a minimum...does a frozen rat right out of the freezer weigh any different than one that I took out and let thaw? Does the moisture in the body affect it?

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I've actually weighed out before and after thawing, just to answer that question for myself. Like mentioned above, there was no noticeable difference. I dry off my rats with a towel real quick before feeding, just to wick away any moisture that's on there.

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Originally Posted by ODoyle90

I've actually weighed out before and after thawing, just to answer that question for myself. Like mentioned above, there was no noticeable difference. I dry off my rats with a towel real quick before feeding, just to wick away any moisture that's on there.

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I have to apologize to the OP but I wasn't trying to hijack the thread. I think I have one BP that needs to go up in food size and two that need to stay the same for a little bit. I was asking because I seperate my bulk order of f/t in packs of three for each feeding and I need to revamp them so everyone is getting what they need but not feeding my smallest BP something too big. So I want to weight them as I repackage them.