my bp is a fatty

my male spider is 6 months old now and almost 400 grams...im feeding by the 15% body weight rule every 5 days and switching to every 7 days after hes over 600 grams like someone suggested i do. but by the 15% weight rule its saying he can take small rats at around 60 grams and they just seem like big rats to me, there not fatter around than the snake is they are just long

should i feed smaller or just keep at it with th rats hes eating now

Personally, I'd go ahead with that size rat and just move him to the 7-day schedule. He can really take that size rat for the rest of his life, as long as he doesn't turn out to be a crazy-huge 2000+g male. My 1400g male Bee gets one 40-70g rat every 7 days, and easily maintains weight when he goes off feed during breeding season.

oh i was told to stop increasing the size of rats once he started eating 100g rats. only 40-70 grams seems really small for such a big snake im no expert tho

In the wild the natural prey is only about 3-4 inches long max. They dont need much to be healthy. We try to only feed our snakes rodents in the size of 4-6 inch. This keeps them from getting to fat but they dont starve. For ones that are a bit bigger well feed 2 rodents at a time. But as for our big 4000g girls we just try to find the biggest rats we can lol.

Ive never heard of the 15% rule. Ive always went with the girth rule. As long as the rodent is as big around or smaller than the snake. Its not to big to be fed.

ok the 15% rule is feeding 15% of the snakes body weight so a 200g bp would get a 30g rat but to stay in the 4 to 6 inch range from theguy im buying rodents from would be a 60-80 gram rat so i guess that will do the trick

We have 2 that are in the mid-upper 500 grams. 1 is about 6 and the other is approximately 9mths. They each get feed a sm to MD size rat every 14 days with a snack in between. They were on a 7 day sm rat before they hit 500.

how small is the snack your talking about

I feed every 7 days, the little ones get fed on a 3day 4 day schedule till they hit about 400g.

a small rat is still larger than an asf by a good bit;)

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

I feed every 7 days, the little ones get fed on a 3day 4 day schedule till they hit about 400g.

a small rat is still larger than an asf by a good bit;)

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^ :gj:

ok so just keeping him on small rats will be ok for life unless he gets super huge for some reason is what im taking from this lol

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Originally Posted by warlord

how small is the snack your talking about

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Usually an adult mouse or asf

I just go by what will fit in their belly without looking like they swallowed a football. Most of mine take smalls. Some of my bigger girls gets mediums or 2 smalls.

No matter what age they are i feed all my bps every 7-10 days. My 3 big girls, 1300 grams+, get rats that are roughly the same girth as the fattest part of them. When i buy a big bag of like 25 rodents i usually weigh one or two just to make sure that its within the 10-15% range (i only do that for my cinny male who is about 400 grams). For my three big girls i dont bother weighing their food, they just get a rat thats roughly the same girth as the fattest part of their body, like i said before.

ok but but what is the heaviest rat i should be feeding for him as an adult? like when should i stop ugrading sizes of rats

ok so i picked up the f/t rats today and the guy said they weighed out to about 60-70 grams and i got them home and theres a few weighing in at the 70g area but the rest are all 85-100 and my snake last weighed 385...im gonna feed the smallest rats first and than use the bigger ones but will the big ones be ok or are they to big

hes going to be on a 7-8day feeding schedule now with these bigger rats instead of his 4-5 day schedule as well

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Originally Posted by warlord

my snake last weighed 385

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all the rats are too big

thats what i figured...this kinda sucks lol

gonna have to go buy a few smaller rats until hes big enough i guess

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Originally Posted by DakotaB

In the wild the natural prey is only about 3-4 inches long max.

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What do you base this statement on?

I guess African soft fur rats don't get very big and that's what bps eat in the wild