Feeding question

Hi, by Ball Python Rex is 86 grams right now. I don't know how old he is (got him from PetSmart), but I feel he didn't gain much weight off his feeding last week. He gained 3 grams to be exact. I fed him two fuzzies totaling 9g together. I would like to feed him around 15% of his BW this time (13g).

So on to the question- I would like to try a hopper around the 13g mark for his feeding tomorrow. PetSmart recommended pinkies, which were obviously too small, and he takes two fuzzies so it seems obvious to move to larger size prey. In anyone's experience, has it been harder to feed their BP a larger prey item when their BP has had previous multiple-mouse feedings? I really wanna get some weight on this little guy, because from what i read he seems small, and because I have read of much larger weekly weight gains for BPs his size.

I feel like the error falls somewhere on my side here, but I may just be beating myself up about this. Maybe that weight-gain is normal? Nah, couldn't be... could it?

Anyway, please help me help Rex :gj:

Just weighed Rex again. He is now 88 grams, up 2 grams from last night.

First, I would not be overly concerned about weighing your snake after every feed. Weight will naturally fluctuate up and down, and if you monitor that often you are going to give yourself an anxiety disorder. Getting weights once a month is fine. You want to see an overall upward trend. Second, all snakes grow at different rates, so comparing yours to other snakes isn't really a good indicator. I have two snakes that are almost the exact same age and are fed the same size prey at the same time, and one is 950 g while the other is 1250 g. And it's the younger snake that's bigger.

That said, yes, Petsmart's info was very wrong and your guy can definitely take a hopper. Most baby bps will eat hoppers right after hatching. I doubt he'll be at all phased by the change in prey size unless you were bumping it up drastically.

Baby BPs will easily take a hopper mouse. When my girl was 90ish grams, she was eating hopper mice and fuzzy rats every 3 days. She went from the 90 gram 12" worm to a fat 1000g 4' cage terror in just over a year. My feeding schedule was food every 3 days until 500g. Then food once a week until 1000g. Then food every 2 weeks until Oct or Nov when she decided she was gonna quit eating. Now its been about 3-4 months and she isn't hungry, just comes out at night to destroy her cage or cruise all over me, the couch, the bed, or attempt to go explore the floor.

I just fed Rex about an hour ago. He took a medium pre-packaged mouse. It weighed 16 grams, but was as wide as his widest body width. It was actually quite awesome to see how wide his mouth stretched to get the mouse in.

He is laying next to his heat pad (I have a UTH mounted on the side of his terrarium) on the warm side right now. His tongue is flicking more than usual, and I wonder if he was still expecting a second mouse. LOL!

That is far more than the 9 grams of fuzzies he took last week, but all in all, he seems perfectly content, with no problems from the larger feeding.

Thank you both for the input. I was worried, but I went with my gut and it seems all went well. :gj: