questions on my banana boy

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...926_thumb.jpeg

this guy is funny. he's about 9-10 months old. what happens is: he sheds on a prolonged schedule; every 12-16 weeks. after a shed I can get a meal in him every 4-7 days for about 6 weeks then he goes off food for 6-10 weeks. last shed was on 4/29, last meal was on 6/3. photo and weight taken on 7/25

is this something y'all have experienced?

He looks pretty plump and is probably trying to regulate his weight a little. At his age every 7-14 days is more appropriate intervals for feeding.

317 grams empty is a pretty hefty for 10 months. I wouldn't worry about him going off food as long as his body condition looks good. When he's hungry he'll eat.

Might help to keep a feeding card with his empty weights and when he eats or is offered if you're concerned about him losing weight while off food. Helpful tool to keep track.

finished shedding today and immediately took an asf. finding his rhythm has been a journey but I think I got it down now. the pattern had been unlocked lol

Some of them can be so frustrating. lol

I had one boy who refused everything I was offering. Eventually I realized he was a drop feeder so once I learned to just leave him a doggy bag he was fine.
Another girl went from eating rats her first 2 meals with me to deciding never to touch them again and is a mouser now.

They can have some very interesting quirks for us to find out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nikkubus

He looks pretty plump and is probably trying to regulate his weight a little. At his age every 7-14 days is more appropriate intervals for feeding.

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100% this. I don't personally feed any rodent eating species more often than every 7 days. I prefer them to grow slow and steady and stay healthy, than pump them full of food and risk health issues later on in life, or premature death.

update:

I switched him over to XS-sm rats after his last shed about 6 weeks ago and noticed today he is in blue! I was not expecting him to shed for another month or more. did the switch from rats cause him to grow much faster than before?

also, he ate on the 26th. when looking him over today I saw a few small scale injuries, likely from the way he grabbed his rat allowing him to struggle a bit. I thought maybe that would cause a faster shed cycle to expedite healing but that was literally 2 days ago. so maybe not.

I don't think it had anything to do with the scratches, but do keep an eye on them as they heal. Typically the faster healing attempt shed cycles will happen about 5 or so days after something like a nasty burn. That's because a lot of the skin layers underneath are damaged as well as the topical scales.
Or can happen in softer skin animals like leopard geckos because of vitamin deficiency.

Shed cycles are one of those things that is either clockwork or totally incomprehensible. When they're ready, they're ready.

Glad this one is still eating and doing well from the sounds of it tho!

yeah he's eating and doing awesome!

he is a bit of an anomaly though. I was expecting a big poop during his last shed but all I got was urates. his last bowel movement was on 6/12. I think this shed will yield a "day after thanksgiving" sized present.