My boy is growing like a weed!

I believe a large mouse is only around 25-40 grams. Definitely not enough to maintain an adult ball. Once my balls pass 1kg, I plan on keeping their meals between 100-120g. I have fed my ~1.5 year old male ASF up to 180 grams, but those are few and far between. Essentially only when I retire my breeders.

I have to agree that the OPs bp is on the small side for a 10 month old. I have some August hatchlings that are already 150+ grams. I feed rat fuzzies every 4th day until they reach 300 grams, then they get an appropriate sized small once every 7 days.

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Originally Posted by greenacid

Yeah it was a frozen petsmart boxed small rat. It was way bigger than him. I feed him one large mouse every meal.


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Your snake is not small because it is feeding on mice instead of rats. Rats aren't a super food, they are just an overall better meal. I have female ball pythons weighing over 2,000 grams that eat L-XL mice once a week and they are doing fine. So I don't see why your snake is so small at that age. Have you had it for most it's life? Or did you recently acquire it and was told it was that old? How's its husbandry? Even on large mice, I don't see why a snake would be so small at that old. Some of my hatchlings are half that weight and get up to that size within just a couple months. Very weird.

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Originally Posted by ROACH

Hey "Crazymonkee" do you know if large mice are enough for a adult ball? Im just asking for my own info. I dont think it would be, but then again what do I know.

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Sorry just saw this.... you would need multiple mice at one feeding for adults

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Originally Posted by that_dc5

Your snake is not small because it is feeding on mice instead of rats. Rats aren't a super food, they are just an overall better meal. I have female ball pythons weighing over 2,000 grams that eat L-XL mice once a week and they are doing fine. So I don't see why your snake is so small at that age. Have you had it for most it's life? Or did you recently acquire it and was told it was that old? How's its husbandry? Even on large mice, I don't see why a snake would be so small at that old. Some of my hatchlings are half that weight and get up to that size within just a couple months. Very weird.

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I got him in July from a breeder in my area who told me he was born the first week of March. Now this is someone who had THOUSANDS of balls and probably has no idea how old. So I just went with what they told me. My husbandry is amazing. I have a T8. The ambient air is 82-85, humidity is 55% and hot spot is 92. He eats np at all. He was fed 2 hoppers for the first 2 months I had him and the person I got him from was trying to feed fuzZies. I switched to large mice after he declined a small rat and that was 2 months ago.


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Green acid, I have a suggestion that might help you out. Try scenting the smallest wen rat you can find in mouse soild bedding. I have a female 1400 gram pastel who will not touch a rat and after doing this scenting for a month of feeding, she switched to wen rats. After getting a good 2 months of wen rats weekly in her I now have her pounding sm rats weekly.
Before I switched her, she might have grown 100 grams in 3 months, now she's growing at about 100 grams every month to month and a half. Her sister on the other hand will only take mice or mouse scented live rats, i don't really like feeding live so i give her 5 lg mice every week, she might grow 100 grams every two months at best. She was right at 1000 grams in dec before she went of feed and since april when she came back on feed she has gotting up to 1200 grams. Now she did loose about 200 grams in the fasting period.
Try this out and hopefully it will help you.

Yea, after reading this, either the age or weight is wrong. Or possibly there is some issue internally causing it to not grow properly. But I noticed, the frozen feeders I got from PetSmart were kinda on the skimpy side (lean) and didn't seem to fill their bellies, and the one feeding on them wasn't growing all that fast. Hope you can figure out whats going on.

Is it possible that some snakes grow faster than others, in addition to feeding practices having an effect?

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Originally Posted by Ball Clan

Is it possible that some snakes grow faster than others, in addition to feeding practices having an effect?

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Absolutely!

Yeah, my pastel hit 1000g at her 1 year mark....