BP suddenly very hungry

Hello everybody,

So I have a 9 months old male BP and since this week he seems very hungry. I weight him about 3 weeks ago. He was about 350g. I switched him to rats between 30-60g (more on the larger side) without any problems.
I fed him on Wednesday a Rat about 40g. On thursday he seemed hungry again (Striking pose) so I fed him again a rat 43g which he took very fast. Now on Sunday he is again in striking pose but i'm hesitant to feed him another rat.
Is he still hungry? Should I waite till Wednesday or thaw out another rat?

Thanks fo any advice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ABXE

Hello everybody,

So I have a 9 months old male BP and since this week he seems very hungry. I weight him about 3 weeks ago. He was about 350g. I switched him to rats between 30-60g (more on the larger side) without any problems.
I fed him on Wednesday a Rat about 40g. On thursday he seemed hungry again (Striking pose) so I fed him again a rat 43g which he took very fast. Now on Sunday he is again in striking pose but i'm hesitant to feed him another rat.
Is he still hungry? Should I waite till Wednesday or thaw out another rat?

Thanks fo any advice.

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Way too much food!

At 350G, he should be eating 1 Rat pup or a weaned rat (small one) at most.

You are stuffing him with food and that's not good.

See below for chart on food size.

I would not feed him for 3 weeks now. Let him digest, waste, etc.

Then offer an appropriate sized meal no more than every 7 days.

Further, what are your temperature and humidity like? What's his cage like - size, type, substrate, hides, etc?

Either you are feeding so much that he expects food every time you go near him and/or husbandry could be off. Too hot equals active snakes.

If you do nothing else, please feed smaller meals and every 7-14 days. Snakes, including BP's, are incredibly efficient. They do not need to be stuffed to grow. In fact, this is very bad for them.

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...ding_chart.jpg

FYI, if you feed again before a previous meal has been digested, you risk causing your snake to regurgitate, which would (A- best case scenario) mean no food again for 2-3 weeks to give time for your snake to replenish the digestive enzymes lost or (B- worst case scenario) the regurgitation causes damage (aspiration into lungs) or even death by dehydration from loss of body fluids.

Understand that some snakes stay in "feed mode" (pumped up from eating & willing to eat more) for anywhere from a few hours after a meal to even a day or more after the last meal. So don't "fall" for this apparent "hunger"- that was way too soon to feed again after the first item. Leave not less than a week between meals of prey with fur. (Pinkies & fuzzies are more quickly digested, but it's still not healthy to stuff your snake full of food.)

We're glad you asked. :gj:

Just be grateful you have a ball python that likes to eat! :)

I've noticed mine will sit at the end of his hide in the S pose but he is just checking things out and not hungry or aggressive. I can even pick up his hide without him striking at me. When he is hungry he'll be out and about looking for food during the day. Mine is about the same age as yours but a little lighter at 297G. I just switched him from frozen thawed large mice every 5 days to frozen thawed 30G rats once a week. If it helps I've also seen that temps affect feeding response greatly. If my temps drop below 90 in his hot hide or less than 70 on the cool side of his enclosure he is less likely to eat (winter in a drafty house was a stressful time to try and figure out why a 6 month old snake wasn't eating).

I would take dakski's advice and give him a few weeks to digest what's in his belly since I've read that overfeeding can lead to faster growth rate but a shorter life expectancy.

Just my 2C