Hatchlings

okay so i've read that some people will feed their hatchlings quite often with pinky mice, and others, less often, but with hopper mice. what do you guys feed to your babies, and for how long? im just curious, im hoping to get my first clutch this year, and i just want to see what most people do. thanks!

It depends on the baby, but usually I offer hopper mice or rat pinks every 5 days until they reach 150 grams. Then I offer rat fuzzies to rat pups depending on the size every 5 days.

I never offer mouse pinks, as they are too small unless you have a runt in the clutch.

i am SOO writing that down. :D

I offer ASF hopper for two meals..then switch them over to rat pups for the third. I feed every 5 days till they hit 500 grams..then they get cut back to every 7 days..

Out of the 30 babys I started this way this year.. Every one ate the first time offered and every one switched to rats no problem and are doing great!

All of my babies get hopper mice as their first meal, pinkies are WAY too small for baby ball pythons. I keep feeding them mice until they're taking adults, then I'll try small rats.

I go with hoppers and switch to adult mice as soon as they will take them.

I would go with rats but mice are more readily available than the smaller size rats for me...

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

I offer ASF hopper for two meals..then switch them over to rat pups for the third. I feed every 5 days till they hit 500 grams..then they get cut back to every 7 days..

Out of the 30 babys I started this way this year.. Every one ate the first time offered and every one switched to rats no problem and are doing great!

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This is similar to what I did with my female Spider, but instead I was offering ASFs or Rats every 4-5 days of about 20% her total weight or less. She grew from 107g to 450g in a matter of 4 months~. You can find her post here: http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ghlight=spider.

Since I dont grow feeders anymore, I moved her to 7 day schedule. She is closing 500g.

i wish i could use asf's out here, but in cali they're illegal. :(

On the few clutches I've had so far, I've started everything off on rat pinks or fuzzies -- depending on the size of the hatchling. This is the first year that I'm expecting to have more than a couple clutches, so we'll see how it goes this time around. :P

Hopper mice or rat pinks for the first meal (rat pinks at least a week old).

When I am in that situation I want to start off with rat pinkies if possible. I dont want to have to do the mice to rat switch later on. I made that mistake with my burms and most havent gone to rats still.

I'm a rat guy :)

First meal is a rat fuzzy 2 weeks after their first shed. As soon as I can, I bump up to a rat pup (I feed fairly large meals, some hatchlings go straight to pups). They get food every 7 days from birth through adulthood.

There is a ton of ways to do it, basically do whatever works best for you! :)

I feed mine one mouse hopper twice a week until they're big enough to take adult mice, and then I switch to once a week feeding--no specific date or weight.

I started mine out on sm/md adult mice and now they're on lg mice or rat pups - whichever is available at the time - on a weekly basis.