My Ball python is under weight!!!

I got my ball python July 13 of this year but she is under weight!! I bought her from the store. She looked pretty healthy but at the time I wasn't aware of how much a ball python should weight into I decided to research it. So today I bought a scale & she's 104grams!! She's about 4months. She's a great eater. I feed her every 7days but I think I'm going to change that. What eating schedule should I put her on?

Ultimately you can feed when ever they show signs of hunger I got my little one when he was 4 months and he has been a pig since day one but I got mine from pet smart and they only feed once a week and I happened to buy him on feeding day and I seen they were feeding him f/t pinkies and he should have been eating hoppers... now only after a month he is almost back up to weight.... Hope that helped

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She don't ever show signs of been hungry. She never strikes or anything. I literally think I got lucky. She is the best snake ever. Like since I first got her I never had problems with feeding. She's not shy, she'll let me touch her head. She sheds perfect every time. She don't mind people handling her. When it's eating time she and she smell the rat she goes into hunt mode. I feed her pre-killed now but even before when she was on live soon as she smell the rat and I put it in the tank she literally attacks like it was an Parana attacking because it smelled blood. Soon as the meal goes down I can immediately pick her up and she would instantly go out of hunt mode. I normally feed her little mice or weaned rats but moments ago I fed her a small rat and she ate it with no problem. I may start feeding her small rats for now on.

I highly doubt that you feed a weaned rat to a 104 grams BP and small even less likely so not knowing what you really feed it's hard to tell whether or not you feed the right size.

What you need to feed is a prey equal you animal's girth size one a week that is more than enough and do so until the animal is about 500 grams.

Because a snake is 104 grams at 4 months does not mean anything, it could be an animal that was very small out of the egg and took a few weeks to get started. People put too much faith in number and not enough in overall body shape.

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I feed her a small rat yesterday and now she's 369. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm going to take your advice and go by the size of the largest part of her belly. Right now she looks extremely full but she's still active. She can't even slither her lower end of the body because it's too big. I can't wait until it digest. I feel terrible but looking at the rat I knew she could handle it & she did with no problem but I really appreciate you man. Thanks for the advice.

So YESTERDAY she is 104 grams

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So today I bought a scale & she's 104 grams!!

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You feed her a small rat which she cannot possibly eat as she is 104 grams and small rats are 45 to 84 grams)

And today she is 369 grams

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Originally Posted by Rbeckwood1

I feed her a small rat yesterday and now she's 369.

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Time for a new scale that's IMPOSSIBLE :rolleyes:

I promise you I went into the pet store and purchased a small rat. Idk what's going on when I read the scale I was shocked but I'm sure the scale said 104grams when I weighed her before I even purchased the rat. Then I went to the store & got a small rat. The rat I picked out was just a tad bit smaller than the other ones so maybe that's why she was able to eat it but the other rats you could look at and tell that she definitely couldn't handle it. I placed her on the scale today & iit said 369grams. The scale is brand new I got it the same day I fed her. I was going live on Facebook feeding her but then my phone died. I still have the recent for the rat. I pre-killed it of course.

And I can tell you that feeding a rat that is 45 to 84 grams to a 104 grams BP is IMPOSSIBLE physically.

And it is IMPOSSIBLE for a 104 grams BP to put on 264 grams in 24 hours.

Again you scale is broken and your small rats are not what is define as small rats.

so what do you suggest I do? Maybe something happened with the first initial weighing.

:O
I don't even.. Oh dear.
Do you have pictures?

EDIT:

http://i68.tinypic.com/10rpon9.jpg

You are saying at 100 odd pounds your baby ate a small rat.
My 130 gram baby gets a rat pup.

Maybe this sizing chart will help clear up any confusion for us so that we can accurately help you and promote the wellbeing of your pet.

There's no way a 106g snake puts down a small rat. I think your scale is messed up. Make sure your scale is on a flat level surface, every time you go to weigh put a nickel on your scale first and it should read 5 grams.

If your snake was really 106g at 4 months that is fine, age has nothing to do with it. I have a 8 month old that weighs 200g and came from a reputable breeder and she eats the correct size meal and has not missed a meal in the 3 or so months I've owned her and according to the breeder hasn't missed a meal for him except her very first.

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I don't know BP's but i do know electronics and I'm going to second the above posts in suggesting that the scale is off. Some need to go through a calibration before using, some are especially sensitive to the surface they are sitting on, and some are just defective.
Seems like a lot of folks get very tied up with weight. I suppose it can be important when breeding, but (and correct me if I'm wrong) if your talking about a non breeding pet I feel like if it moves well, eats, sheds, poops, and is round, you're pretty much good.

My 1700+ female and 1500+ male eat small rats. I got 200-300's on fuzzy's pups up and so on and so forth. At 104 there's no way he's putting down a 60+g rat of any kind.


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Did you have the snake on a bowl to weigh it and forget to tare the weight of the bowl off after the feeding when you reweighed?

Did you have the snake on a bowl to weigh it and forget to tare the weight of the bowl off after the feeding when you reweighed?

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Originally Posted by chrid16371

There's no way a 106g snake puts down a small rat. I think your scale is messed up. Make sure your scale is on a flat level surface, every time you go to weigh put a nickel on your scale first and it should read 5 grams.

If your snake was really 106g at 4 months that is fine, age has nothing to do with it. I have a 8 month old that weighs 200g and came from a reputable breeder and she eats the correct size meal and has not missed a meal in the 3 or so months I've owned her and according to the breeder hasn't missed a meal for him except her very first.

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Agreed! Mine weighs like 250grams still eating fuzzys maybe a bit bigger

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I'm 100% sure it was a small rat. No doubt at all! I'm going to reweigh her once I get home. If you guys want me too I will happily offer her the same meal as she had last time after this one fully digest. I know the difference between the rats at first I would feed her rat pups. The only reason I got a small rat was because the rat pups were out!

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Originally Posted by Rbeckwood1

I'm 100% sure it was a small rat. No doubt at all! I'm going to reweigh her once I get home. If you guys want me too I will happily offer her the same meal as she had last time after this one fully digest. I know the difference between the rats at first I would feed her rat pups. The only reason I got a small rat was because the rat pups were out!

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Most likely just a broken scale. But if it would help clear things up for the thread, taking a picture of your BP next to a ruler, and then taking a picture of the small rat next to a ruler (separate pics, so the BP won't flip out into feeding mode), would help!

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Originally Posted by redshepherd

Most likely just a broken scale. But if it would help clear things up for the thread, taking a picture of your BP next to a ruler, and then taking a picture of the small rat next to a ruler (separate pics, so the BP won't flip out into feeding mode), would help!

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Definitely do this, I'm not believing it was a small rat either, not unless you have a much larger snake than your scale is suggesting.