Re: Normal Growth for BPs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jazi
45/265 is about 17%, which is technically larger than 15% though not to the point where it'd be ridiculous I think. That's sort of my point, at what point would "a little too large" become "way too big", because I'm feeding him right veeeery close to the 15% mark as it is. If I tick up the food size, it'll go over 15%. Hope you don't think I'm splitting hairs here, his health is just rather important to me and I'd rather not get it wrong :3
Thanks Jen, that's really helpful. I see now that the big visual jumps are normal, used to mammals and their growing slowly but steadily. Quetzal is between the 6.5mo and the 8.5mo length if I'm estimating right... span between my middle finger and wrist is 7.5in. He wouldn't be still in my hand, wanted to climb my arm, so we compromised.
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-20223255.jpg
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...3-20223501.jpg
Looking pretty good weight-wise?
He does look good weight wise, and he seems to be just barely at that point between bumping up prey item size. By the time you finish the mice as planned, you should be set to just snag some small (wean?) rats for the next batch of feeders.
I wouldn't worry over much about a particular meal being too big or small. You can always balance it out, alternating between sizes, especially with the natural variance between feeders as C & H said.
Lastly, don't underestimate how big of a prey item your snake can eat...I once had a baby (less than 3 months) escape, while I also had an escaped small rat. The rat had been loose for about a week, and was proving freaking hard to catch. I came home from work about two days after the baby ball python had escaped, worried as heck that I wouldn't catch it or that the rat would hurt it...to find that the baby ball had caught and eaten the small rat, and was sitting in the middle of my floor, looking so fat I was afraid she'd pop. She ended up digesting it, although it took days for the lump to go down, and she had the most massive poop ever a couple weeks later.
Not that I would ever recommend in any way to feed a snake that small a rat that size, but when we're not around to regulate their prey item size, they have their own ideas about appropriate meal sizes!
-Jen
