anyone deal with slow growers?

Im an impatient person lol Ive had my male pastel for about 5 months now he always eats every week never thinks twice about food and always shed but somehow my 2010 male pastel weighs 136 grams unless the scale is wrong? and my female 2011 dinker weighs 67 grams. Anyone have that slow of a grower haha?

I have an '07 pastel female that's around 800g

i thought that i was the only one dealing with this.i got my first bp about 2 and a half years and she just weighs almost 300 grams.she also eats every weel and is a good eater.she is not skinny though.she is kinda short and chubby.idk what is the reason for this.:confused:

I am just going to toss this out as my case with a slow grower. I took in a little girl that was one year and 160gms. She is a tank when it comes to feeding she always will and look for more the next day. I had her for 8 months and she was still only 350 gms. I do yearly fecals and she was found with a tapeworm. (FT eater all her life apparently 30 hours at -7ºC to kill tape worm eggs...) She was treated and in the next 3 months she has come very close to doubling her weight. (672 gms) It is something you might give some thought to. Perhaps a fecal exam if slow growth continues for much longer might be worth it. Just my experience.

They do grow at different speeds, that is for sure.

My little mojave is topping 300. She's a '10.

Minnie the Mean Snake is one month older and just under 900.

My slow grower is a finicky eater, she was a mouser hen I got her, she now takes asf's, when she does eat.

My little mojave was a slow starter. Didn't eat for weeks at a time then only wanted to take very undersized prey every couple of weeks. She's up to every week to ten days now and she's starting to put on some weight--about 35 grams in the past month. She still prefers undersized prey but she's not getting it.

Something doesn't sound right if he eats like you say he does. My most finicky 2010 eaters are all over 400g and a few of them don't eat every week. Either your scale is off, your feeding too small, or the snake has an issue.

Regards,

B

i have an 08 female pastel that is only 367g and she never refuses a meal if i feed her every 3 days she grows quicker

I don't think I would purchase an ASF eater, too expensive/rare. A few times my go to feeder shop ran out of rats in my size. They only had ASFs, everyone around me that I knew said you are actually going to feed that adorable thing to a snake!? They have to eat, right?

I think some just grow at different rates as stated above. I thought the fecal results were very interesting. Thanks for the input!

Most people say it is better to have a small well eating male. Look at it as a plus...

Well.. They say slow growing female generally produces bigger clutches

I have a female that was returned to me as a hatchling after being neglected by an owner who lost his housing. She's a 2009, but she's smaller than some of my 2010s. She's an off and on feeder.

Also, I think the bit about 'slow-growing' females is unlikely (to say the least). Bigger females usually lay larger clutches. Since they do most of their growing in the first 4 years of their life, you can do the math on that one. I suspect size, growth rate, and clutch sizes are all related to genetics, all else being equal, and there's no reason not to feed a young ball python up well. I would be concerned that if you don't maximize their growth in the first 3 years, you may miss the window to having a truly large snake. They continue to grow over the rest of their life--but only extremely slowly.

I would look into de-worming your snake or at least having a fecal sample run. I agree with Simple Man, my picky Sept.2010 snake is nearly 500g. I would say on average she eats 1:3 times that I attempt to feed. I try every 5 days 10-15% of body weight for prey size. Sounds really strange to me that a snake that eats regularly would not grow.

What size prey are you offering? It should scale up as the snake grows. My 2010s are eating small rats now. (I do have one mouser, she's taking jumbo mice).

If you're offering prey as big around as the widest part of the snake's body, and they are eating them every week...then I agree, you should take a fecal sample in for a parasite check. Ball pythons that eat well usually grow quite fast.

People often underestimate how big a prey item a ball python can eat, though. My brand new hatchlings are already on small mice at 2 months old (big fuzzy rats would be equivalent).

I have a few slow growers. I have an '06 female that just hit 1000g. She was a problem feeder though. I have now figured out how to get her to eat solidly every week. I have a '07 pastel male that is only around 600g. He doesn't eat every week though.