Is he too small?

So I finally got my first BP. After looking over a lot of morphs I decided on a Black Widow. I was having a hard time finding a younger baby until I came across one on Morph Market. The breeder is a smaller one, but after looking them up they had great reviews and seemed reputable, so I went for it. I got a male, and the woman said he has eaten four times. He is about a month and a half. She said last time they weighed him he was 60g but I didn't realize how little that now sounds. I'm wondering if he is a bit on the small side? I'm hoping I can add some good weight to him as I have him, and plan to offer him a medium mouse every five days to see if it helps. I don't actually have him yet, he arrives Tuesday, but from the picture above what do you guys think? I can send a picture Tuesday too, and I plan to weigh him when he gets here.

http://i64.tinypic.com/2eykl5i.jpg

At 60 grams he's still hatchling size and a medium mouse is going to be huge.

When I got my GHI she was 55 grams. she is just over 2 years old now and is the biggest girl of my collection at 1700+ grams. It was nerve racking because she would not take F/T for the first month and I couldn't find anything live that was small enough to offer. Ended up giving her the smallest adult mouse at petco I could find. After that she started pounding f/t and never stopped. I'm actually afraid to put a male in with her because her feeding response is so aggressive I'm worried she'll try to eat him...

@piedlover79 - I was just thinking medium mice cause the breeder said he was on small/medium mice. I had planned to check the widest part of his body and base the size of the mouse of that once I saw him in person.

@Insane - How funny! I'm hoping mine turns out to be a bigger boy. :) that must have been scary for you though at first!

60 grams and eaten 4 mice?? I would think someone is not telling the whole story.......
I have had some small babies but most are over 60 grams out of the egg.
Hopper mice should be good for you.
Were they feeding live or f/t?

Perhaps the breeder has a different idea of what a medium mouse is?

Oh it was, she was the smallest ball python Ive ever had and I was still fairly new to keeping them.

As far as prey size goes, I just fed my newbie a very small mouse and it left a noticeable bulge in her abdomen. She was at 120g, so I think a medium adult will be too big for your guy. Maybe by "small/medium mice" the Breeder is actually referring to hopper/weaned mice? Either way, it might be in your best interest to try and switch him over to rats as soon as possible. It will be easier in the future to feed him one small rat vs trying to feed multiple adult mice. And from what I've read rats are more nutritious than mice so he should gain faster on them.

Sorry, on mobile and my autocorrect is stupid so I had to edit some errors :P

Live. I will see how big he is when he arrives and feed him based on that.
From the picture above does he look too small or just young still?

There is nothing in that photo to compare the size of the snake to.
We can only go by what you are telling us.

Unfortunately from the picture you can't really tell how big or small he is. Maybe you can ask the Breeder to take a picture of him in their hand or next to something to get a better idea of size?

Here's a pic of my GHI when I got her at 55 grams.
http://i.imgur.com/esW3uYoh.jpg

And here's my 2 newbies at about 120-125 grams as another comparison.
http://i.imgur.com/iYEFIBDh.jpg

ON mobile so posting images is a pain. Hopefully the links work :P

When I got Enchantress she was 40 grams (that was in August) she is now 88 grams, her hatch weight was 26 grams. Maybe he was a very small hatchling and is slowly gaining weight.... I started Enchantress on baby mice everything else was too big for her, she has just now started eating pinky (1-2 day old) rats and they give her a little stretch so I would just check size of mouse/rat before feeding. Good luck and what a handsome boy you're getting!

I will take another picture on Tuesday.

@Insane - How long did it take your girl to put on decent weight?

Thank you Ari! I was in awe of his looks the second I saw him.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by insane

... I'm actually afraid to put a male in with her because her feeding response is so aggressive i'm worried she'll try to eat him...

---

lol

60 grams is ok. They can be born as low as 40 grams or so I've heard.

Here is my 56g Pastel Enchi. Just ate his first meal yesterday since I've owned him. It was a 13 g hopper mouse. He probably would've taken a second one but I don't wanna overdo it with this little guy.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...79141ad861.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

When I get home I'll take some screenshots of her records and post them. Hopefully it will give you a good idea of what to expect with your little guy.

From the picture he certainly doesn't look emaciated or anything.

Going through all my clutches the smallest I hatched out were the Het Albino/Het Axanthic twins at 30g and 40g
After 4 meals each there were 72g and 83g.
Maybe its just me but I cannot see selling anything that small.
My personal minimum weight is 100g before I even list them.

I'm not saying anything bad about anyone just would rather sell very well started animals.

So apparently it did take her a few mice before she started taking F/T. I also stopped updating my records after mid last year, I was keeping them in a calendar book to keep better track and never transcribed them. Oops. But this should give you a good glimpse of how things went in the beginning. I'm not going to say this is definitely how you should go forward with your guy or if you'll have the same experience I did, but hopefully it will give you some idea of how fast they gain weight.

http://i.imgur.com/qq5esCG.jpg

And just for giggles, here's a very out of focus picture of her at 1400 grams.
http://i.imgur.com/q3QFfDSl.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Insane

So apparently it did take her a few mice before she started taking F/T. I also stopped updating my records after mid last year, I was keeping them in a calendar book to keep better track and never transcribed them. Oops. But this should give you a good glimpse of how things went in the beginning. I'm not going to say this is definitely how you should go forward with your guy or if you'll have the same experience I did, but hopefully it will give you some idea of how fast they gain weight.

http://i.imgur.com/qq5esCG.jpg

And just for giggles, here's a very out of focus picture of her at 1400 grams.
http://i.imgur.com/q3QFfDSl.jpg

---

What kind of record keeping software is that? I'm guessing it's computerized? I wanna do something like that. My notebook is getting cluttered lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Insane

So apparently it did take her a few mice before she started taking F/T. I also stopped updating my records after mid last year, I was keeping them in a calendar book to keep better track and never transcribed them. Oops. But this should give you a good glimpse of how things went in the beginning. I'm not going to say this is definitely how you should go forward with your guy or if you'll have the same experience I did, but hopefully it will give you some idea of how fast they gain weight.

http://i.imgur.com/qq5esCG.jpg

And just for giggles, here's a very out of focus picture of her at 1400 grams.
http://i.imgur.com/q3QFfDSl.jpg

---

Oh wow, so she gained pretty well it seems. I'm starting to feel better, maybe mine is just a little guy. All the snakes she had posted looked healthy and had varying weights so I am betting he was just a smaller hatchling. :) I think I will keep track of his feedings and weight now though, that was a good log!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by piedlover79

From the picture he certainly doesn't look emaciated or anything.

---

Okay good. Hopefully he will be a good eater like most the spiders I have heard about. ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mangiapane85

What kind of record keeping software is that? I'm guessing it's computerized? I wanna do something like that. My notebook is getting cluttered lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

---

It's actually just Microsoft Excel, if you have that program I can email you the template if you want to pm me with your email address (or anyone else who is interested as well!). It's really nothing special, but it gets the job done. The initial plan was to take a picture after their first shed of the year and mid year so I could see how their colors changed over time, but I got a bit lazy with it. I plan to get everyone's records back up to snuff in 2017 since I've had to start keeping records on my newbies again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Insane

It's actually just Microsoft Excel, if you have that program I can email you the template if you want to pm me with your email address (or anyone else who is interested as well!). It's really nothing special, but it gets the job done. The initial plan was to take a picture after their first shed of the year and mid year so I could see how their colors changed over time, but I got a bit lazy with it. I plan to get everyone's records back up to snuff in 2017 since I've had to start keeping records on my newbies again.

---

Well I don't have a computer at the moment. I do everything from my iPhone.. :/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Insane

So apparently it did take her a few mice before she started taking F/T. I also stopped updating my records after mid last year, I was keeping them in a calendar book to keep better track and never transcribed them. Oops. But this should give you a good glimpse of how things went in the beginning. I'm not going to say this is definitely how you should go forward with your guy or if you'll have the same experience I did, but hopefully it will give you some idea of how fast they gain weight.

http://i.imgur.com/qq5esCG.jpg

And just for giggles, here's a very out of focus picture of her at 1400 grams.
http://i.imgur.com/q3QFfDSl.jpg

---

She is beautiful! I love her dark colors.

And nice system of tracking things. I too stopped taking such meticulous notes for a while but it was getting tedious. I like your spreadsheet a lot though, that's a great idea


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk