Weighing snakes?

What is the importance of weighing snakes?
Is it primarily for breeding success? Or is it important for gauging overall health too? If for overall health, how often and when (before/after/both feeding?) do you weigh?

I'm not breeding, but I weight roughly every month/couple months to make sure everyone isn't loosing weight and see how much they're gaining. I weight more so if I have a snake who's on strike so I can determine that they're not loosing a dangerous amount of weight. Weighing after they poop is the most accurate.

I'd say Angelica summed it up perfectly. I weigh after each shed since they usually deficate at the same time, and I know they're empty.

It's nice to keep track of growth and the only way to do that is to weigh them. Knowing weight for breeding is also pretty important.

Thanks for the information! It's been something I kept reading on these forums, but have not come across with other animals (except during health checks).

I've lost a couple of snakes in the past from failure to thrive/unable to digest and so now, I weight mine religiously because I want to make sure they are growing. My pre-feeding routine is to weigh everyone so I know how much food to give (they are all babies) but that also helps me to see how much they are growing. As long as it's in a general upwards direction, I'm cool with it.

Especially ball python owners should have a notebook or a card, action log whatever for each snake. Every single one of mine have a record. In this one place you write down every shed, poop, feed, weight (you can weigh monthly or bimonthly if they're eating), this way if the animal ever stops eating or needs a vet for any reason you have a full record, no guessing. It will help immensely for any timely potential diagnosis. Snakes or reptiles in general do not show their weakness or illness' quickly. So by the time some notice its far to late. Having this record is also going to make your life easier when the ball does decide to go on a feed strike. And it will happen. No mass amounts of weight lost normal. Lots of weight lost not normal.


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

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Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

Especially ball python owners should have a notebook or a card, action log whatever for each snake. Every single one of mine have a record. In this one place you write down every shed, poop, feed, weight (you can weigh monthly or bimonthly if they're eating), this way if the animal ever stops eating or needs a vet for any reason you have a full record, no guessing. It will help immensely for any timely potential diagnosis. Snakes or reptiles in general do not show their weakness or illness' quickly. So by the time some notice its far to late. Having this record is also going to make your life easier when the ball does decide to go on a feed strike. And it will happen. No mass amounts of weight lost normal. Lots of weight lost not normal.


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

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:winner:

I could not have said it any better. I have 9 snakes (soon to be 10) and I have a binder dedicated to records. I write down when they ate/didn't eat, what the prey was and how large it was, how much they weigh, when they poop, when they shed, and I have a column for anything else that I need to document. Next year once I get my logo/website/etc. up and running, I'll be updating everything with QRS codes and I'll sign up for Reptiscan and document that way too. Right now I have a hard copy and I put everything on iHerp.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

Especially ball python owners should have a notebook or a card, action log whatever for each snake. In this one place you write down every shed, poop, feed, weight (you can weigh monthly or bimonthly if they're eating), this way if the animal ever stops eating or needs a vet for any reason you have a full record, no guessing.

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I agree...
I keep a little book I bought at wal-mart, I can look back a year or two and
I write down every shed, poop, every rat size, what my heater was set at, etc.
the little book cost a dollar or two.......

Harry

Excel spread sheet. I weigh every week before I feed. I think I've trained the snake because after they get put back into the bins, they stay near the front and await the rat.


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