what if I feed him a mouse that is too big?

Here's what you should do. Ask for the smallest pinkie/hopper/adult mouse ... If your snake seems hungry a few days later, give it a pinkie, a small one. That'll hold it over. However, don't over feed your pets. Meaning an obese snake is an unhealthy snake. Small meals for them and us in general is better. If you need seconds, get a really small second portion.

Ball pythons don't get obese or at least I've yet to hear or see one that is and everything I've read here by experienced breeders seems to confirm this. They do tend to self-regulate by fasting if you overfeed them so huge prey or too many prey isn't a good idea for a number of reasons.


When we were first new to feeding our first bp and had to go get a live prey from the pet store we would use our own fingers to get a girth width comparison and then relate that to the widest part of the mouse (usually the hips). The pet store people thought we were nuts but we always came home with the right size prey LOL. Or you can take a shoestring...put it around the snake...mark the girth and then check it against the mouse at it's widest girth. Silly little tricks but until you get used to eyeing it, they maybe will help you when you have to pick prey out of a big feeder tank at the pet store.

well, i fed it to him cause it actually wansnt that much bigger than the girth, or widesst part of his body is.

and i wish i coould go back to look at the mice, but the store has all the mice and rats in a separate room with glass in front of it, so all they can do is pick it up and ask if its a good size through the window. and it's hard to really look at it sometimes.. but next time ill just have to get a closer look