Just got to measure her!!

For scales personally I think the 7001 DX can't be beat.


http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/in...ROD&ProdID=187

Comes in black or silver and this particular seller has ebay stores often with sales on this scale.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

I believe that you are. Hatchlings are able to take hopper mice as their first meal. If you're feeding fuzzy rats, you're probably fine, but fuzzy mice is not enough for your snake.

Try hopper mice or small adult mice. I started all of my babies whem I got them on hoppers or small adult mice.

I do remember when I got my first ball python being nervous with each increase in size, but he always did just fine. Just remember that with adult mice, they can't be left with your snake overnight, so be prepared to house them if not eaten in the first 30 minutes.

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But my little girl is about as big around as my thumb. I weighed her a few weeks back at the vet she weighed in at 62 grams. She's getting crawler mice right now. It leaves a very faint lump in her stomach. Should I go ahead and up her to hoppers anyway??

Well I can only tell you that I've got two hatchlings less than 60 grams and they both easily take down 5 day old pink rats.

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Originally Posted by 2kdime

But my little girl is about as big around as my thumb. I weighed her a few weeks back at the vet she weighed in at 62 grams. She's getting crawler mice right now. It leaves a very faint lump in her stomach. Should I go ahead and up her to hoppers anyway??

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I would think she could take small hoppers (eye just opened).

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Well I can only tell you that I've got two hatchlings less than 60 grams and they both easily take down 5 day old pink rats.

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That's all I need to hear!!

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Originally Posted by Argentra

I just hope mites don't get to him.

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Mites are pretty species specific, so snake mites aren't likely to bother your leo. Just make sure that you change clothes and wash your hands after handling the mite infected snake before going into the leo enclosure. :)

:) cool. Good advice all around.

Joanna, thanks for that scale link. That site looks great, as does that price. I'll have to see if WalMart has anything cheaper I can still get results from (to placate my partner...who hates it when I spend money at all), but most likely I'll be going with that one. Thanks :)

A quick Q on food size increases: I know that upping size is based on girth of the snake, but I'm not the greatest at size comparisons. I am planning on acquiring a pair of mice to breed my own (only need one pair to give pinks to the corn and sometimes to the leo and hoppers to the BP) and wanted to know if there is ANY other way of determining when a snake should be upped to the next size mouse. It's kind of hard to tell after she eats if she's still hungry or just looking around for a good place to hide.

Isn't about 10% of they're body weight about right?

Up until they start growing up? You certainly don't wanna feed 250 grams of food to a 2500 gram snake.

Just when they're little woula make sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Argentra

A quick Q on food size increases: I know that upping size is based on girth of the snake, but I'm not the greatest at size comparisons. I am planning on acquiring a pair of mice to breed my own (only need one pair to give pinks to the corn and sometimes to the leo and hoppers to the BP) and wanted to know if there is ANY other way of determining when a snake should be upped to the next size mouse. It's kind of hard to tell after she eats if she's still hungry or just looking around for a good place to hide.

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It's very hard to quantify. For me, it really was learning as I went. I'd start with a hopper for a baby - and if they still look like they're hunting after about a month of one hopper, I'd go to two. Then I'd move to a small mouse for about a month, then increase to two, until I moved up to mediums, one for several weeks, then two and so on.

Here's some great stuff to help decide about appropriate prey sizes. That's first...is the prey appropriately sized (compare empty largest girth of snake to the largest area on a rodent which is their hips/butt end). Then you have to decide if that one prey is enough. With rats it pretty much is easy because they grow so much, mice don't. The rat vs mice comparison chart really comes in handy when I have to convert (as I feed rats it's harder for me to suggest x number of x size mice to someone). This particular chart is invaluable because it gives ages too....for instance a day old rat pink would be maybe 3 grams but a 6 day old rat pink would be about 8 grams. The photos are courtesy of The Mouse Factory to give you a visual on growth of both rodents. www.rodentpro.com has absolutely excellent info on their site with specific lenghts, weights, etc. of each stage of rodent growth. Well worth checking out!

Mice:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...0Info/mice.jpg

Rats:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...20Info/rat.jpg

Rodent comparison by weight/age chart:
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2.../sizechart.jpg

So going by that chart for instance my 07 hatchlings that were just under 60 grams were eating 7 gram 5 day old pink rats. Today I weighed them both...one is now at 58 grams, the other is at 69 grams. They'll likely remain on this size pink rat for a few more feedings. The other two 07 hatchlings are 146 and 168 grams respectively. They both eat rat fuzzies which I would guesstimate are about 15 grams in weight being that they are 10-12 day old fuzzy rats.

They eat every 5 days and will move up to every 7 days when they hit 200 grams or thereabouts.

When I fed mice I just used approximate weights to a single rat and fed multiples when I felt they needed the total volume but weren't ready for a single larger mouse. I've done the same with rats occasionally as a transitional stage....in other words perhaps two small pups before moving up to one small weanling rat.

Hope that helped.