Ball Python Feeding Graph

I know most people feed their BPs rats based on the girth of the snake, but I still feel more comfortable doing it based on the weight of the snake and rat. I'm also visual, so I've tried to come up with a graph that makes it easy to correlate the snake's weight with the rat's weight. I've used a couple sources to create the graph:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...mparison-Chart

http://www.ballpythonz.net/feeding-ball-pythons/

I also assume the 10% rule for BPs weighing ≤ 650g

Please provide feedback and let me know if you think anything needs to be adjusted. And there's obviously some error band that would go around this curve, but I don't have a good feel for how to estimate that. Maybe a ±5% is reasonable?

http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file.../4/0/graph.jpg

There is no need to feed anything larger than a 150 grams rat to any BP.

Here Females 1000 to 1500 grams get rats anywhere between 80 to 100 grams.

Females 2000 grams and over get rats 100 grams and over maxing out at 150 grams, and I do have 3500 and 4000 grams females.

Their metabolism is very different and slows down tremendesly one of the biggest problem in captivity is that they are overfed, and consequently will eat less consistently.

You want an animal that feed with consistency feed smaller meals weekly.

Males get even less nothing more than a 89 grams rat every 7 to 10 days.

I don't weigh anything BTW can't imagine weighing 100's of rats, but when you have done that a whole and raise your own rodent you just know that rats a certain age are a certain size. ;)


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Originally Posted by Deborah

There is no need to feed anything larger than a 150 grams rat to any BP.

Here Females 1000 to 1500 grams get rats anywhere between 80 to 100 grams.

Females 2000 grams and over get rats 100 grams and over maxing out at 150 grams, and I do have 3500 and 4000 grams females.

Their metabolism is very different and slows down tremendesly one of the biggest problem in captivity is that they are overfed, and consequently will eat less consistently.

You want an animal that feed with consistency feed smaller meals weekly.

Males get even less nothing more than a 89 grams rat every 7 to 10 days.

I don't weigh anything BTW can't imagine weighing 100's of rats, but when you have done that a whole and raise your own rodent you just know that rats a certain age are a certain size. ;)


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Thanks, Deborah. I'll drop the curve down some to match your numbers. And yeah, I can't imagine someone with so many mouths to feed weighing every single rat. This is definitely more of a newbie chart.

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Originally Posted by BPGator

Thanks, Deborah. I'll drop the curve down some to match your numbers. And yeah, I can't imagine someone with so many mouths to feed weighing every single rat. This is definitely more of a newbie chart.

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I don't have hundreds, but I am one of the crazies that weighs every single meal for my entire collection. When I started out, it was because I needed help eyeballing it. Now, it's because I'm an analysis nut and like putting numbers to things. :gj:

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Originally Posted by Eric Alan

I don't have hundreds, but I am one of the crazies that weighs every single meal for my entire collection. When I started out, it was because I needed help eyeballing it. Now, it's because I'm an analysis nut and like putting numbers to things. :gj:

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That's my problem! Thus the graph.

Here's the updated graph with Deborah's suggestions. I basically dropped the rat weights down for BPs > 1000g.

http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file...4/0/graph2.jpg

I like it but I would make two, male feeding and female feeding is really different even with animals that are the same size, for example if you take a 1500 grams male vs 1500 grams female they are just not gonna get the same amount of food.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

I like it but I would make two, male feeding and female feeding is really different even with animals that are the same size, for example if you take a 1500 grams male vs 1500 grams female they are just not gonna get the same amount of food.

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Okay - I was thinking you were capping the male off at 89g just because he would never get as big as the female. Do you think everything is the same except the male gets capped at 89g, or would it even be different for snakes < 1000g?

Hmm. Well I don't have a scale, but when I bought my male BP (a few months ago) the breeder told me he was 1200 grams. I feed him a medium rat (the packaging said they were 90-150 grams) every 10 days. They are about 5-1/2 inches long and as wide (sometimes less) as the widest part of his body. Is that too big for him?

Well, per Deborah's recommendation, this graph is good for a female and the male should be capped at a 90g rat. This is also meant for feeding every 7 days. I'll defer to someone else how much should be fed every 10 days.


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