Is it possible to OVER feed?

Pardon my ignorance if my questions have been asked thousands of times before :rolleyes: I do use the search button on this forum and find a lot of what I'm looking for usually! I'm happy to say my temps seem perfect and I'm working on the humidity (at 50% right now....) so I think things are going pretty well.

So my baby (85ish gram) bumblebee male just ate his first meal at my house after being here for 3 days. It was a f/t adult mouse (YAY!!). He gobbled it right up, and doesn't really have a noticeable bulge in him or anything. He does look fatter, but nothing major. So question 1) Should I move up a size, and if so to what? and 2) Can I feed him another mouse if that wasn't enough?

I guess what I'm getting at is, how many meals is TOO many per week? Can I offer him a mouse like twice a week? Two in one day? I don't know if there's a rule of not to feed more than 1 prey item a day, or too close to another meal...hope that makes sense.

Also, I noticed he drinks a lot, for a long time. He won't actually go INTO the water bowl, but his head is down in there drinking for a long time. I honestly don't know how often they drink, my dragons rarely drink and don't even have water bowls in their cages...so that's new to me LOL. Normal for him to drink so much?

Thanks so much everyone, I'm so glad I've found a nice community here. :cool:

It is possible to overfeed a BP, but when they are young it takes some serious effort to do so. You can feed every 4, 5, or 7 days. Feeding 2 smaller rodents on a feeding day is perfectly acceptable. With young BP's you can use the 15% rule, but once they hit 500 grams the 15% rule starts to not work. Basically you weigh your snake, then feed him a rodent that weighs 15% of his body weight (so a 100 gram BP should eat a 15 gram rodent: 100 grams x 0.15 = 15 grams)

BP's get most of the water they need from the rodents that they eat. But it is't uncommon to see them drinking from their water dish. Nothing to be concerned about.

Even if the meal seemed a little small, feeding every 5 to 7 days is plenty. Yes, sometimes ball pythons will over eat to a certain extent, but they are also prone to fasting for periods of time which result in them slimming back down.

Regardless, personally I do not feed any more often even if the meal seemed small or the snake still seems hungry. I just make a note and increase the meal the next time - a week with a bit of a smaller meal is not bad in and of itself. If anything, it'll help hone your snake's appetite for the bigger meal. :)

-Jen

First of all don't ever feel ignorant for having to ask a question. Least of all here. When it comes to the health of your animals, the only dumb question is the one you don't ask.;) And secondly, YES you can over feed a ball python. Some of them will eat anytime there is food whether they're hungry or not. I have babies myself and I feed f/t mice every 5 days since they are in their fastest growing period and need the most protein. This will slow down after a few months. The mice I feed are the same size or just a little bigger than the "fattest" part of the snake. Any smaller than that and I feed two. When I do this I wait until the first mouse is all the way down in the stomach, usually 2 or 3 minutes after watching it disappear into the snake's mouth. Then I offer another and usually I get another good strike and coil. I hope this helps