When you say "lose significant weight" from not feeding, can you define what you feel is significant?
I've got a young adult.. 3 years or so male ball.. He was underfed when I took him in a year ago.
He was getting three frozen/thawed pinky's every week or so, and was not having his feeding advanced as he aged/grew.
He was about 600 grams and 32 inches or so when I took him in. I began feeding him every week or so, and appropriately sized live meals and he would take them eagerly. He did have some issues with "small" adult rats when dinner wasn't ready to go peacefully. If dinner gave him any real fight back, or bit at him, he'd pass on it. I got around this by feeding multiple crawlers to give him an appropriate meal size.. 10% of body weight per meal.
Over that year he went from 630 grams to 978 grams, and up to 43 inches...
Last significant meal he had was 90 grams worth of rats in February. Refused rat meals in march. In early April I offered a mouse and he took one. He took another adult mouse in late April. He's refused live crawler rats, live adult mice, F/T rats since then. I've taken the approach of buying a single live crawler rat, offering it to him first, and when he passes, offering it to my other snake in the next cage over.
Current weight is 890 grams.. so.. down 10%. He is active, is able to be handled, and doesn't appear ill. He comes out, sniffs live or F/T prey, and goes on about his business.
Regarding husbandry, we've had a change. I went from 55 gal long tank with lights, then CHE's and needing a mister to keep humidity up... to an AP enclosure with RHP's, no need for humidity supplements. No mites. No parasites. Keep it clean. All things I learned from here.
So.. No meal at all in over 3 months and only 2 adult mice in 5 months. Down 80 grams, which is just under 10%. Not worried, just asking at what point I should get worried.
