Weight and Feeding

Currently my black pastel male is 5 months old, weighing in at 266g and for the last four weeks has eaten 2 rat fluffs once a week. I'm just checking to make sure this sounds about right for a male of his age as some people claim that their males have been up to a breeding weight of 600g + in 6 months, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

They all grow at different rates, I have two sisters from the same clutch that differ in weight by close to 200 grams and they eat the same damn thing lol. Rat fluffs, I'm trying to visalize what those are, do you mean fuzzie? Or pups? Either way, that sounds about fine to me. As long as he's reacting satisfied and hiding for about 2 days after feeding then it should be enough.

By 5 months my males weigh more than 266 grams. The best way to determine how large of meals to offer is by weighing the snake and rodent. T
You should feed your snake a rodent that weighs 15% of yhe snakes body weight every 4-7 days. (so a snake that weighs 100 grams should be fed a 15 gram rodent)

Thanks for the quick replies, LGray23 the ones he's feeding on at the moment vary from just starting to grow hair to all hair visible, he does exactly what you said as well and hides solidly for 2 days after feeding, however the issue I was having wasn't that he wasn't eating enough, I was just worried about over feeding, he seems to be growing fine in lenght and girth but his head seems to be staying small, it may just be me though! SerpentMerchant I will definately weigh his food items at his next feed to see if this can help!

No you're definitely not over feeding him, if anything it's slightly under. Sounds like fuzzies to me, I'd try a pup, or weaned rat :) I agree that weighing the food will help a lot. I have a hard time measuring how wide the rat is as opposed to the snake, so weighing takes the guess work out of it :) A small digital food scale would do.

I grabbed some frozen weaned rats on the weekend and it is very difficult to gauge size by looking at them. All 5 looked close in size, but after I got home and weighed them, they ranged from 33g to 56g, and my snake is only 222g. All the rats had less girth than my snake, but obviously the 56g was far too big for him.

I think that the weaner rats might be the way forward then for me after I've expleted my current supply :), just by looking withought weighing I can see that his girth is matched to the girth of the weaned rats, however I was still just worried about the size of the weaned rats body and head compared to his head, I heard that you should not offer food items with a head larger than the royals, is there any truth in that?

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Originally Posted by Pollard89

I think that the weaner rats might be the way forward then for me after I've expleted my current supply :), just by looking withought weighing I can see that his girth is matched to the girth of the weaned rats, however I was still just worried about the size of the weaned rats body and head compared to his head, I heard that you should not offer food items with a head larger than the royals, is there any truth in that?

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They can unhinge their jaws for a reason :D they can easily eat rodents 1.5x larger than their heads without problem. Just try not to feed your snake meals that are that big on a regular basis

If you're worried about trying weaned at his size, try a step down. Rat pups are larger than fizzies, and worse comes to worse if they are still too small you can feed him two pups. Your best bet is to invest in a scale though.

Haha cheers for that reminder SerpentMerchant, I'll be sure to bare that in mind, on a serious note though it's good to know about the 1.5x larger size! LGray23 I think I may be miss-understanding sizes here, I always thought pups were smaller, I moved mine up from pups to fluffs!?

I've never even heard of fluffs, and honestly, the sizes are different every where you go! Where I am, the sizes are:
pinkies
fuzzies
pups
weaned
small
med
large
x-large
etc

But, like I said it's different everywhere, even in the next town over! I'd say play it safe and go with the darn scale...now I'm getting confused haha

Sometimes the snakes don't want to follow the rules.

I have a 90g yellow belly that should be eating something 9-13g. He will not touch anything that size. I have to give him two or three 4g to get him to eat.

I'm hoping he'll get better as he grows but for now I'm glad he's eating something.

Haha yeah I think that's fair to say that the scale will save me here, its true that all sizes are variable at the best of times, I think it must just be my area over here in England! Never the less thank you for all your input, I've weighed what I'm feeding at the moment as well and it comes in at 2-3 grams short of 15% of total weight so will b using that as my guide from now on :)!

Aye Feed 15% of body weight here is a chart that gets you close to what they weigh :)

MICE

Sm. Pink 1-2 grams
Lg. Pink 2-4 grams
Peach Fuzz 4-6 grams
Fuzzies 5-8 grams
Hoppers 8-12 grams
Sm. Mice 11-16 grams
Med. Mice 15-24 grams
Lg. Mice 24-28 grams
XLg. Mice 30 grams+

Rats:
Rat Sm. Pink 3-8 grams
Rat Lg. Pink 5-12 grams
Rat Fuzzies 10-20 grams
Rat Pup 20-30 grams
Rat Wean 30-45 grams
Rat Sm. 40-80 grams
Rat Med. 80-150 grams
Rat Lg. 140-200 grams
Rat XLg. 190-250 grams

RestlessRobie that's perfect, I've been looking all over google all afternoon to try and find something like that, thanks for sharing that with us :)!

Pollard, something to keep in mind, BPs tend to have smaller heads and more slender necks than most other pythons and even a 3000 gram adult female with still have a reatively small cranium compared to the rest of her body. They can open their mouths wide enough to swallow any rodent prey that is with-in the proper size for the snakes weight. Good Luck!

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Originally Posted by UpNorth

I grabbed some frozen weaned rats on the weekend and it is very difficult to gauge size by looking at them. All 5 looked close in size, but after I got home and weighed them, they ranged from 33g to 56g, and my snake is only 222g. All the rats had less girth than my snake, but obviously the 56g was far too big for him.

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It depends what you mean by "too big".

These snakes, heck most pythons in general, are quite capable of taking large meals, just don't make a habit of it. On occasion some of my animals will get a larger than normal meal.

Would a 23% meal be too big? He may go from 222g to 250 before the 56g rat is on the chopping block, but it is by no means too thick for him right now at 222g. It's a long ass rat :)

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Originally Posted by UpNorth

Would a 23% meal be too big? He may go from 222g to 250 before the 56g rat is on the chopping block, but it is by no means too thick for him right now at 222g. It's a long ass rat :)

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short term I don't see any issues with it, he should grow into that sized rodent within a month I would think (or at least get into a reasonable range (16%-18%)