I have a spider that isn't gaining weight even though he is eating?

He is a few months old now and eats once a week, he is on rat pinkies. All together we have 14 BPs and 9 other are very close to his own age. They have all put on weight but he seems not to, I mean the rest were on pinkies and now are on pups if that tells you anything. Any idea what's up with that?

At a few months old he should be eating weaned or chubby rats. It sound's like he's simply not getting enough food. A rat pinky is very small for a ball.. I start hatchling babys on pinks or pups..

As of right now looking at his girth a pup would be too big for him and a pinky is perfect. Remember different people call their rats/mice different sizes. So let's not get confused.

Maybe I should try to feed him more frequently then. Every 4 days maybe?

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Originally Posted by Makoma

As of right now looking at his girth a pup would be too big for him and a pinky is perfect. Remember different people call their rats/mice different sizes. So let's not get confused.

Maybe I should try to feed him more frequently then. Every 4 days maybe?

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Got a pic of him??

or what your calling a pink..

The thing that really has me bugged out is the other babies about his age have all surpassed him on weight and overall size.

did you produce him or buy him??

Round about this size.

I'll go find my camera cord to post on here the spider himself.

http://electricchairreptiles.com/images/Rat%20Pinky.JPG

He was bought.

Start giving him rat fuzzies.

Better yet, give him two pinks.

yea I feed that to wee baby ball pythons..

When I first got my spider hatchling at 107g (very small), her first meal was a rat pup, as in still crawling around with its eyes mostly closed, but already had a full coat of hair. It seems to me you are too afraid to feed it something a bit bigger. I dont think is accurate to apply the "a meal as wide as the snake" rule to a hatchling or very young BP.

My thoughts are when he was the same size as the others and one the same food why hasn't he stayed with their size?

I also had a very sad mishap about 4 months ago with a Vanilla that I would compare to his current size eating a rat pup.

PS- still looking for the cam extension to load a pic of him.

While I agree with those who are saying this spider can probably eat bigger meals, what I got out of the OPs posts is that other snakes that were the same size and were being fed the same food have grown, and this one has not. I can understand the OPs concern.

They do all seem to grow at their own rate, and it isn't necessarily as directly correlated to what they eat as one would expect. I have a mojave girl that seems to gain weight on thin air. And, when you have several snakes, one of them has to be the slowest grower. But if he is truly not growing at all, or is way behind even the 2nd slowest grower, then there might be a problem. Taking a fecal sample to a vet to rule out parasites might be worthwhile in that case.

Since you say he is not gaining weight, do you know how much he weighs? Posting that info would help people to advise you better on what he should be eating.

I didn't post this post for anyone to question what I feed my snakes size wise. All are healthy and I have owned BPs for 5 years now with no real issues. I am positive I won't be able to feed him anything larger for his own health. Like I mentioned the ordeal with the Vanilla...when taken to the vet after the fact her meal was too large for her even though I was positive she was fine and she ate it with no issues. However she died sometime during the night and the vet told us it was 99% from the meal being too big and she was unable to begin digesting it and she became bloated...OVERNIGHT.

Thank you to the above poster for realizing the reason of my postings.