Weight Question

Ever since I got my snake about 4 months ago, I've been feeding her regularly every 7 days. (Sometimes on the 6th day if I notice her roaming around her enclosure all day.) However, I don't feed her during her shed cycles. She's also about 9-10 months old. She's never refused a meal either, at least not while she's been with me. Any way, I know that when a BP is underweight, you can see its spine pretty well. I've always fed her meals that are the size of the largest part of her body or a tad larger. In other words, there's always a "lump" where the mouse is. Even with this feeding schedule, her spine is still sticking up. :confusd: Should I start feeding her every 5 days, perhaps? I'd take pictures, but I just fed her a few hours ago and don't want to disturb her.

What are you feeding her?

I try to switch it up between adult mice or a rat around the same size. I've recently noticed she'll take mice more willingly, so I've been feeding more mice than rats.

For my balls I feed the standard 15% of their weight and I feed every 5 days until they are 750g or so. From then on its once a week.

For boas I feed 1.5 times the width of their largest area and feed once a week until they are about 5lbs and switch to every 2 weeks.


Every body gains consistently for me, unless they're off feed.

Also. I've noticed they grow faster/better with rats. I've read many discussions on why, there are several threads on this site and others. Rats aren't for every species of snake but in my opinion, for balls/boas, of it is

If you are switching between mice and rats keep in mind they rodents might be similar in size but the rat will be much heavier than a adult mouse. You may want to feed multiple mice if the animal doesn't take the rat.

Thanks for the info! I'll see if I can get her more accustomed to rats so I can get that weight to stick. :)

You can usually see the ridge of the spine a little. It's when they get saggy and triangle shaped that it's really bad news. (Obviously there are stages of malnourishment in between).

A scale to verify % body weight you are feeding might help too. Plus you can chart her weight, it's cool to see how high of a % of the rats weight they pack on themselves. :gj: