Can everybody chime in with what your feeding your BP and it's weight per gram?

Just thought this could be an insightful thread and I know I'm curious. What prey item do your feed your pride and joy(s), how big/old is your snake as well as what the food item weighs gram for gram.

Right now my boy weighs about 1300g is about a year old and is eating either two FT 40g rats a week or 1 80-90g rat. What's your snakes eating habbits?

male, 1 year old, 800g

has been eating two mice a week (in one sitting) totalling about 70g
last two weeks he's been eating three, totalling about 90g
this week he's going to be offered his first rat...we'll see how that goes.

so far he's been looking for food just a day or two after each feed...this guy's like a bottomless pit. I'm not sure how much is the right amount to feed him :confused:

I have a female who is probably about 9 months old. Last time she was weighed she was 440 grams. She gets 1-2 live mice per week (depends how the previous week went 2 mice per week is too much for her right now). As of yet I have not had any feeding problems *knock on wood*, other than during shed. A few times its taken her a little longer to actually go for the mouse (maybe like 5 min) but she always gets em. And I have no idea what the mice weigh :oops:

Thanks for giving some feedback everyone.

What triggered me to post this is that I have a slight dilema here. I am having trouble finding 80g rats and the only way I can hand pick the desired size is to drive all the way up to NERD which I will be doing soon. I have a few 100g rats in the freezer that I have been hesitant to give him. The last couple weeks I have been feeding him two 40-45g rats from Petco which can get expensive. Like I said, I am tempted to give him the 100g rats but I don't want to overfeed him.

Do you all think a 100g rat would be too big for a 1300g snake? I was sketchy giving him the two 40g rats.

how's the girth?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BostonMacK

Do you all think a 100g rat would be too big for a 1300g snake?

---

Yes. One 40 gram rat per week is all your snake needs.

-adam

I just fed my two guys. The little girl got a hopper that weighed 10 grams. She weighs 80 at the moment.

The big ol blood python just got fed a medium rat. He weighed 150 grams. A bit too big for my liking. But the rat was the same size as his girth. So all is well I suppose. I have no idea what he weighs. He's around 2 to 2 and a half feet long. Ill be feeding him small rats from now on. He took a medium with no problems. I'd just rather stick to smalls to keep him at a little slower rate of growth.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Yes. One 40 gram rat per week is all your snake needs.

-adam

---

that's good to know :oops:

Well I have snakes ranging form 120 grams to 1800 grams, I feed a prey slightly smaller than the girth size once a week and nothing larger than a small rat (4 weeks - 45/65 grams) or 2 to 3 adult mice to my largest adult.

This way they feed with consistency and do not fast.

Awesome stuff everyone, this is why this site has become my personal BP bible ;) Thanks again everyone.

Fish,

Sitting here looking at a ruler I would estimate my snakes girth to be around 2 1/2 " to 2 3/4" belly to spine.

Adam,

That is great to know. I just remember about a month ago feeding my boy a single 40g rat and he was out roaming his cage two days before his feeding day which freaked me out causing to post a thread here. Looking back he did act as if he was hungry and the behavior stopped after I fed him his usual 80g rat. If a single 45g rat is a healthy diet for my boy I am all for it. I'll see how he does with that for a while.

I am sure their is a good number of different feeding rituals here amongst all the BP.neters all of which work for their snakes.

what I meant was how does the girth of the prey item you were thinking of feeding compare to the snake's girth? If it's too big in girth then that's a show-stopper, no matter what it weighs.


you've got a big boy! 1300 grams....do you have a length for him? I love the big boys :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BostonMacK

Adam,

That is great to know. I just remember about a month ago feeding my boy a single 40g rat and he was out roaming his cage two days before his feeding day which freaked me out causing to post a thread here. Looking back he did act as if he was hungry and the behavior stopped after I fed him his usual 80g rat. If a single 45g rat is a healthy diet for my boy I am all for it. I'll see how he does with that for a while.

---

Ball pythons will fill up on as much food as they can while available and then take long periods off from eating all together. For a male on a weekly feeding schedule, one "small small" rat is plenty. They don't get "hungry" the same way we as humans do.

Given his age and current weight/feeding schedule, I'd bet that you're in for a nice long fast starting near the middle of October.

Hope this helps.

-adam

Adam on your breeding calendar page you say you put your females on a heavier than normal feeding schedule. What exactly is that? You've said you never feed larger than a small rat, so do you feed more often?

as i've just started with my baby ball i have been going along the lines of what i was told by the chap i bought him off. he said to me to feed every 10 - 14 days but big food. my ball is 4 months old - 80g and i just fed him a small f/t adult mouse weighing about 10g which went down very nicely.
it certainly seemed the right thing to do???

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rottendj

as i've just started with my baby ball i have been going along the lines of what i was told by the chap i bought him off. he said to me to feed every 10 - 14 days but big food. my ball is 4 months old - 80g and i just fed him a small f/t adult mouse weighing about 10g which went down very nicely.
it certainly seemed the right thing to do???

---

I tend to feed my hatchlings more frequently than 10-14 days. I keep them on hoppers for a few months then switch them to very small rats (slightly larger than the crawlers). I move up to small medium rats once they reach sub adult size. I've been trying to keep my adult balls on small medium rats for a while now and they seem to do very well on the smaller prey. Great feeding response most of the time.

Here's an approximation of my feeding:

<150 grams until they can handle rat pups - 8-11 gram mouse hoppers (occasionally twice a week)
<600 grams - 20-29 gram rat pups
>600 grams but less than 1100 grams - 30-49 gram weanlings (sometimes still pups - depending on the snake)
>1100 grams - 50-89 gram small rats
>1500 grams - 50-89 gram small rats approx every 10 days

I got my weight estimates from the rodent breeder website I got my last batch of frozens from. My more "slender" snakes I keep on the smaller size prey item for a longer period of time, until they are enough of a pork chop to size up. Anyway, you get the picture.

Unless otherwise noted, they are on a weekly schedule.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Ball pythons will fill up on as much food as they can while available and then take long periods off from eating all together. For a male on a weekly feeding schedule, one "small small" rat is plenty. They don't get "hungry" the same way we as humans do.

Given his age and current weight/feeding schedule, I'd bet that you're in for a nice long fast starting near the middle of October.

Hope this helps.

-adam

---

Man, I hope he does'nt go into a fast because I know that will stress me out beyond beleif. I am a ball of stress anyway and that could send me to the funny farm. Regardless, I am going to keep him on 40g rats from this point on while keeping a close eye on his weight. He is a big boy and whatever I can do to assure he doesnt become overweight and unhealthy I will do. Thanks for the insight Adam, much appreciated. Atleast if he does go into a fast I will have an idea as to why.

Auryn's about a year old and ~600g. I feed him one "jumbo" mouse from Big Cheese Rodents once a week--their chart says those mice are anywhere from 33-45g. These seem to do very well for Auryn--and unless I'm told otherwise, I think one of them a week will be good for him into the foreseeable future.

I think the thing to bear in mind is what an artifical situation we keep captives balls in. In the wild I think things are very much feast or famine or at least very irregular meals. Our nice cosy cages, regular feeds and reduced exercise are a pretty abnormal environment. Growing BPs seem to have a incredible capacity to eat and grow - I imagine that wild BPs grow much more slowly than captive animals although I admit I have no eveidence for this - does anyone?. Adult BPs don't have the same feed requirements and regular overfeeding can easily send them into an infuriating fast as I experienced when I fed Monty on too large small rats for a while.

I find sizing feeds quite frustrating acutally due to the variability of what terms such as 'small' and 'weaner' mean in practice. I buy throzen rats online and the variation is considerable - one batch of small rats approaches 'weaners' others are much larger (too large for me) and some weaners are so small they approach fuzzies. The ideal 'large weaner/small small rat' is often elusive. There is only one local supplier but their stock is enormously variable in availability and I have no idea of it's quality. I have never weighed my rats but I shall do so later - Monty is over 2 years old now and getting on for 1.5kg.

Fish,

The 40/45g rats I am feeding him are a good deal thinner than the girth of my boy. You can barely see a visible lump in his belly after a meal.

Azure,

I beleive our snakes both came out of NERD around the same time give or take a month or so. When I brought him home Kara told me he was around 6 months old and that was about5.5 months ago. He is rather large compared to your snake and I hope I havent been feeding him an unhealthy diet.

I am going to take a few pics today just for an excuse to show him off. I can't wait to get my next snake either, I am thinking a pastel from either NERD/8ball. Kara has been so good to me it would be hard to buy from anyone else yet on the other hand it could be fun to mix it up a little. This is only the beginning for me ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BostonMacK

Azure,

I beleive our snakes both came out of NERD around the same time give or take a month or so. When I brought him home Kara told me he was around 6 months old and that was about5.5 months ago. He is rather large compared to your snake and I hope I havent been feeding him an unhealthy diet.

I am going to take a few pics today just for an excuse to show him off. I can't wait to get my next snake either, I am thinking a pastel from either NERD/8ball. Kara has been so good to me it would be hard to buy from anyone else yet on the other hand it could be fun to mix it up a little. This is only the beginning for me ;)

---

BostonMack,

I brought Auryn home in February, and I believe he was about 6 months old at the time, too. If your boy's been eating faithfully for you since you brought him home, and if he's been getting pretty largeish meals, I'm not surprised he's bigger than Auryn. I tried switching Auryn over to rats from mice a few months ago and he went for a month without eating anything for me. I tried again and he went another two weeks without eating...so hes' got some catching up to do! I decided he's a mouser for life--and he's been eating consistently for me since.

Please do take some pics! Kara said you picked out the nicest normal there when you came, so I'd love to see! I'm thinking about another BP, too. I'm graduating from UMass Dartmouth in the Spring...I'm thinking it'd be a nice graduation gift to myself ;) I'm thinking I'll get my next one from Adam (8Ball), since I've heard such good things about him, too. Then again, I'm planning on getting a rack from RBI next Spring, too...and there's four slots in one of those things! One for Auryn and three empties...And I can always put dividers in them--that's 3-6 empty spots for new babies ;)

Maybe one from Kara and one from Adam :D

My 4yo is about 1200 grams and I feed him one live small rat every Monday.

My other two are a yr old and weigh about 400-600 grams or so and I feed them 2 live mice every Monday. I get my live rodents at Petco so the weight of them change weekly.
On the advice of the breeder I got my two young ones from on about every third feeding I only feed one mouse that week. His point was that 2 mice times 52 is 104 mice a year and in the wild a bp would eat no where near that much.
As for my 4 yo I feed him a small rat every week just about because he will go off feed every winter no matter how I feed him, it's just his deal.
This seems to be working well for all my bp's so I stick w/ what works :)

I am going to feed my first rat next feeding! Augie just went into shed so he'll be skipping this week's feed.

I bought three frozen rats from the pet store...just weighed them and they are about 60g. If he eats these I will be sure to order a big box of rats that are closer to 40g. If he doesn't eat them I will order mice in that range.

I'm not actually afraid of a fast....should I be? (yeah I'm a NOOOOOOOB)

Jotay - it is interesting that your babies have been growing much more slowly than mine - I wonder if that is down to my overfeeding, a rat diet or just individual variation. I wish I had kept a monthly log of weight and length for Monty as he was growing. Ah well.

Fish - a fast is not so much a problem in itself as a BP can survive for many many months without food. But is it is frustrating, expensively wasteful, may retard growth and is worrying as although a healthy BP may just go off feed for a while you find yourself worrying that something more serious is going on as fasting may be a sign of illness/stress.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kurgan

Jotay - it is interesting that your babies have been growing much more slowly than mine - I wonder if that is down to my overfeeding, a rat diet or just individual variation. I wish I had kept a monthly log of weight and length for Monty as he was growing. Ah well.

Fish - a fast is not so much a problem in itself as a BP can survive for many many months without food. But is it is frustrating, expensively wasteful, may retard growth and is worrying as although a healthy BP may just go off feed for a while you find yourself worrying that something more serious is going on as fasting may be a sign of illness/stress.

---

I am guessing on their weight. I don't have a scale so I may be off. I know the pastel who turned a year old in July is a beast but the albino who turned a year old in Aug is not growing near as fast. One of these days I will get a scale, right now I just go by the weights I get when I take them to the vet.

just weighted my little dude. he ate 2 days ago. hes at 76 grams.

Azure,

I just posted a thread in the general forum to show his size.

Congrats on finishing up school, that's a pretty big deal and defineatly deserves a snake or 3 as well as a rack ;) Seriously though, big congrats to you!

Irwin has eaten every week since I brought him home but his size for a year old has me slightly concerned, even more so seeing he's a male. I am sure every snake is different but I am definetly going to cut down on his food to one 40-45g rat a week. He has an unreal feeding responce to say the least, even when he's in shed he hits the rat as fast as I can stick the tongs in the tank.

Fish,

When I switched Irwin over to rats I just took a FT mouse I had left over and rubbed it all over the rat. He took the rat as if nothing had changed and hasnt looked back since. Hopefully your transition goes just as smooth.

Be sure to check out my pics in the general forum.


Thanks a million to everyone sharing info here, great stuff!

As far as fasting goes in my experience males fast more often and for longer periods than females. This is a generalization but in reality females need to produce much more body weight than males in order to lay eggs so it seems only normal that they would fast less.
Boston if your boy fasts don't stress out, it is very normal for adult boys to fast when temps drop in fall time. One of my boys didn't eat for 5+ months with no ill side effects. He bred like a sailor on leave but wouldn't eat. Now (summer)he is eating like clock work but I will bet $ that he will fast again this winter. I have over 30 snakes in identical enviorments and some eat and breed and some fast and breed, but once again my males eat way less in the winter and I have had females eat until they are gravid. Smaller meals is always your best bet for consistency.

I feed my adult snakes small rats every week. If the rats are a liitle larger I will wait 10 days.

My babies get mouse hoppers or pinkie rats every 5-7 days.

My juvy's get rat pups to rat weanlings once a week depending on size of snake and frequency of feeding. Larger food item longer in between feeding.

In the winter, when cooloing for breeding, my adult snakes get smaller food items rat pups/weanlings to make digestion easier in the cooler envioroment.

Thanks for that info WestCoastJungle. Yeah, if he fasted 5 months ago I would have been freaking out because everything was so new to me. If he were to fast now I would'nt enjoy it but I wouldnt freak either because I would atleat have an idea why it's happening. It'll be 40 gramers from this point on. Much easier on the wallet also, about 50% easier to what he was getting to be exact.

Thanks again.

Figured Id chime in about this too. (all FT rats from petsmart..suuuuper ripoff - bulk purchasing soon)

I feed lelu medium to large rats, depending on their size, and her weight. She was 1600grams at the beginning of this year, and is sig. bigger now. I moved her back to medium.

Chester who is a year younger generally gets mediums, since they are =or< his girth.

Cleo, at 680 is real skinny (didnt get her that long ago and shes in between sizes) so I have her on two small rats/wk and shes gradually getting to a good weight.


I'm actually haveing a problem deciding what to feed lelu. I am breeding her, shes developing, laying on her side, ect. A large rat is about her girth, at least it seems so, since the rat is frozen flat. It's hard to tell. I think I'll wait until tomorrow and give her a medium, but that just feels so weird, because mediums are real small for her, and are what I feed chester. hrm....Idk. If I posted a video or a picture in a new thread, could I get some help?

Well, it's a great time to ask, since I just got scale as a Christmas present :D
Just so happens that I weighed everything out, haha.

(name/weight/feeder weight/every "x" days)

Charlie - 126g - ~14g hopper - 3-4 (soooo close to moving up!)
Cleu - ~680 (not as recent) - 71g sml. rat - 4 (she's also really close to moving up!)
Chester - 1104g empty - 176g med. rat - 7
Lelu - 1648g empty - 176g med. rat - 7 (normally on large rats, but since shes breeding and still eating, I feed her a little smaller)

My biggest snake is about 2000g and she gets an ~85-90g rat every 10 days or so.

Smallest snake is 550g and she gets an ~30g mouse every 5-6 days.

A question for "Starmom" did you have a hard time switching your snake from mice to rats?? I am going to attempt this at the next feeding and I am very uneasy about it - worried I will send her into a fast or something.

Any advise on this.

Thank you.

Hahahaha!!! Wish I could get my hypo to make the switch!!! :P

The only one who I had to switch was my pastel and I just employed tough love :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Yes. One 40 gram rat per week is all your snake needs.

-adam

---

40grams rat/week for a 1300gams.....Thats less then 5% of its body weight.... So its ok to feed ball pythons 5% of their body weight throught their whole life?

i dont see why you guys are weighing the rats. the point of this should be to not feed a rat bigger than the girth of your snake.

I follow pretty much what Adam does. Once a week- small rats, the bigger snakes sometimes get two rats instead of one. Since I switched to this feeding routine, I do not have any snake fasting as I did before. For years I fed my oldest ever 14 days or so and he would get a med-large rat. He would fast for months at a time, now he doesn't.
Also, since I feed live, I feel safer with the smaller rats. Less likely that the snakes will get hurt.

Stan is just about 500 grams and is eating 35-40gram mice. I went a little higher than that and he went off feed for several weeks... so I went back down and he eats like clock work.

Neemo is only 500gr he's 4 y/o (his previous owner fed him monthly 1 sm mouse) I started giving him 1 sm rat every 5-7 days and he's doing well with that.

Phoebe 650gr is 1.5 yrs old and she gets a bigger smaller rat every 5-7 days

6 mo. pastel 290gr that gets 1 sm-med mouse every 5-7 days

So far this is working for us none have gone off feed