Pelota VS Medium Rat

I asked on here a week or two ago whether or not anyone thought Pelota, my 32 inch, 10 month old female bp, could handle a medium rat. I was recommended to stick to small rats for a while longer. But in my heart, I knew she was big enough to take a medium rat. So I contacted Rob @ canadianfeeders.com and finally complained about the horrible order of small rats I had gotten a month prior. The rats were thin, sickly looking, and were rotten(fell apart/exploded pretty much every meal). Not to mention they weren't small rats, but rather thin rat pups/weanlings. He wanted to make good, and offered to either replace the rats I had left over with some rats from a different supplier(of any size), or give me my money back for the left overs. I decided to try medium rats. So I traded in the 10 "small" rats for 10 medium rats. And boy are they a good sized rat, lol.

Anyway, I had to wait a week for Pelota to shed before I tried these medium rats out on her. She shed friday night at 7:30pm...right on time as usual(she's like clockwork, lol). So I thawed the medium rat, and prepared for the worse. I hoped she'd take it, but my sister thought otherwise.

Anyway, here's some pics, lol. Sadly, I got an error message when I first tried to post this, so I guess it'll have to be split up into two posts. Hope that's okay. :(

First, a before pic, for size comparisons and such.
http://img194.echo.cx/img194/249/pel...hed92wh.th.jpg

Now the feeding pics.
http://img194.echo.cx/img194/8169/pe...rat10ay.th.jpg

Poor ratties nose got bloody while thawing
http://img194.echo.cx/img194/9406/pe...rat23ms.th.jpg

Chewing neck like a vampire
http://img176.echo.cx/img176/3070/pe...rat36mo.th.jpg

Found the head like nothing. I was worried she'd have trouble with it.
http://img176.echo.cx/img176/2228/pe...rat46tt.th.jpg

Halfway there...
http://img176.echo.cx/img176/6554/pe...rat55vy.th.jpg

This butt could use some ketchup
http://img176.echo.cx/img176/5484/pe...rat61lt.th.jpg

Almost done...
http://img212.echo.cx/img212/5360/pe...rat73yw.th.jpg

It's nippy...so she's wearing her turtle neck sweater :)
http://img212.echo.cx/img212/6696/pe...rat85uf.th.jpg

She swore she'd quit smoking...
http://img212.echo.cx/img212/6207/pe...rat94yi.th.jpg

Do I have something in my teeth?
http://img212.echo.cx/img212/6578/pe...at109rs.th.jpg

Now, an after shot size comparison. Nice little fatty now.
http://img212.echo.cx/img212/9347/pe...at114wu.th.jpg


So there we have it. She took her first medium rat. I'm so proud. And a bit worried about the future. If she's already on medium rats at her young age...what monster might I have on my hands later down the road. :eek: :)

Only problem I had was she's too big for her hide now. She couldn't squeeze in it, so I had to make a make-shift hide out of a box I had laying around in my room. The hides have been snug for her lately anyway. I'll be picking up some new, proper sized clay flower pot bases on tuesday or wednesday, so no worries.

Sorry for the long rambling post. And of course, sorry for the cheesy captions. :)

-Cody

congrats on the feeding, i feed small rats 60-80 grams. i fed med to a couple of mine and their feeding went sporadic(every 2-3wks). the sporadic feeding bugged me to much so i went back to smalls. i'm sure the snakes were fine with it, i just felt better with weekly feeding. hope all goes well with yours. looks like she going to grow some.


vaughn

yeah....looks like pelota won........she's doing as good as i am with the smoking...lol

cool pic's...

yep... I would have to give pelota that KO on that one. Whats her weight?

She is very nice by the way. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cody

I asked on here a week or two ago whether or not anyone thought Pelota, my 32 inch, 10 month old female bp, could handle a medium rat. I was recommended to stick to small rats for a while longer. But in my heart, I knew she was big enough to take a medium rat.

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In my humble opinion, just because a ball can "handle" a larger meal doesn't mean that is what's best. In my experience, ball pythons that are fed slightly smaller meals eat much more consistently and are less prone to refusing food or short fasts. It seems to mean that if you load a ball python up with food, it will sooner or later take a break from feeding to "catch up". If that sort of behavior doesn't bother you than ROCK ON and pack it in there!! Just trying to share some of my experiences.

-adam

nice work there pelota! the medium rats i have are a slight bit bigger and nellie's girth a slight bit thinner than pelota's looks so i prefer to go with a smaller meal for her. if pelota keeps taking them down like that though it looks to be all good. :)

Yeah I know this is a big meal for her. She's been having two of those dinky thin rats for a month or two now, so it'll be a shock on her system most likely. I plan on moving her feeding schedule from every friday, to every 10-12 days. She's quite an eager feeder, so I expect to have no problems with her refusing meals or anything.

Thanks for the comments. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

In my humble opinion, just because a ball can "handle" a larger meal doesn't mean that is what's best. In my experience, ball pythons that are fed slightly smaller meals eat much more consistently and are less prone to refusing food or short fasts. It seems to mean that if you load a ball python up with food, it will sooner or later take a break from feeding to "catch up". If that sort of behavior doesn't bother you than ROCK ON and pack it in there!! Just trying to share some of my experiences.

-adam

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I couldn't agree more adam, I had trouble with Bob fasting for a good while so when he finally started eating halfway regularly again I moved him to a every 2 week schedule and give him thin medium rats and now he eats very consistently. And he has lost no girth and is still growing.