Food Absorbtion

How much of a ball python's meal does it absorb as weight? For instance, lets say you feed a ball python a 100g rat. The ball python weighs 800g. What percentage of the rat's weight gets turned into weight for the ball python. I'm just curious because I feed my 3 biggest girls rats that weigh 130g+ and I'm wanting to know how much weight they would gain from a rat that size. Has anyone ever tried to figure it out?

Weigh your meals offered - weight of waste excreted = amount of absorption. Its hard to quantify urine but urates and feces should give you some sort of picture as to whats going on. I've never tried this myself but if I was going to try I think thats the way I would do it.

I'm not sure thats a question that anyone can accurately answer. That would different for each animal. I'm sure that would take some serious scientific research that many of us don't have the tools or ability to do.

Like Spaniard suggests, we would have to keep track of their exact food intake, urine, urate and feces emissions.

I think there are just way too many variables. You could just weigh the rat and then weigh the snakes poop and subtract the difference if you totally left out the snakes metabolism.

I might try this with a couple of my snakes and see what the results are. Maybe try a few females and a few males and keep track of everything. :) We shall see. I can do it over a few months.

You would have to worry about the water they drink too :rolleye2:

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Originally Posted by Jenn

I think there are just way too many variables. You could just weigh the rat and then weigh the snakes poop and subtract the difference if you totally left out the snakes metabolism.

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I don't think metabolism would have any effect. Slower metabolism should yield more waste while higher metabolism should yield less waste. At least thats what the logic in my brain is telling me.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

I might try this with a couple of my snakes and see what the results are. Maybe try a few females and a few males and keep track of everything. :) We shall see. I can do it over a few months.

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Alternatively, you could wait 'til your snake is "empty," weigh her, feed her, weigh her again, then wait 'til she has the big elimination. Then weigh her one last time. You can subtract the difference between the final and initial weighings to get a rough idea of weight gain. Then subtract empty weight from full weight and use that value to determine % of rat used to put on weight. This will eliminate the need for you to weigh excrement/urates.

Thanks! I'll give that a try. I should try a male and a female. Its seems, at least in my experience, that females gain more weight faster, so maybe when I do this for a couple of my snakes I can see what the average is for both males and females. :D

I've wondered this same thing before. I'd be intrested in hearing your results if/when you try this.