When to stop going by the 15% rule.

Hello again, guys, yet another feeding question.

As some of you may know, Athena went on a little fast from rats for a while and started to loose weight, so I had to switch her to mice. Before She stopped her fast, she weighed in at about 650g and now that I have a scale, I was able to measure out the correct number or mice for her. (She's on 4 adult mice every 7 days currently). She just pooped before I fed her again on Friday, an before I put another 4 mice in her, she's already at around 740-750g. Now, I know you guys say to usually stop at small or medium rats and they'll eat those for the rest of their life, but what's the quota on mice? How many do I stop at and when?

Also, just to make sure she continues eating for me, I'm probably not going to try to switch her to rats again until after she goes through her 900-1000g fast, if at all. A lot of you seem to think she'll be just fine on mice if she continues to refuse considering she's only a pet and not going to be used for breeding. (Yet... we'll see what happens when I get my own place. I already have so many herps on my wish list.)

I'm not sure if this helps but both my balls are 900+, gram wise they don't get anything more than a 70-90 gram rat once every 7-10 days.


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I would either feed her as many mice as she will eat on her own in a sitting, or at least move up to Jumbos.

My male is around 1200 grams now, he is a mouser, wont eat rats (wish he would, it'd be cheaper, lol) but he eats 5 mice every 7 days, I figure this by trail and error and a few trashed mice, best of luck!

Yeah they are good at regulating themselves, meaning they will not just keep eating mice until they pop. You will find it turns out to be about the amount that would equal a good sized rat for the snake.

The really frustrating ones are when they will stop at one or two, no matter what, then you have to try to feed more often.

For the person who decided to negative rep my previous post, how about you come here and actually explain why my comment is "over feeding"?

15% is a guide-line, like a lot of things that we do. IMO it is difficult to over feed a growing ball python, as long as you are not power feeding or force feeding it. They will eat until they are full then that is it.

For the OP, I have a female mouser who, while a bit annoying, is growing up great and has made it beyond the 1000g mark with no problem. Did she do it as fast as a rat eater? No. But, she has had steady growth.