How often is too often? Or not often enough? (Feeding)

[Caspian]

So, I've been keeping all of my BP's on a six-day feeding schedule. It's convenient for me, and it seemed to suit the recommendations I've seen as far as feeding frequency for young snakes goes.

However, the three I got most recently are, to me, a bit skinny... my CH boy is tiny, and the '14 Pastel Pied is smaller than my '15 Black Widow by quite a bit. So when I walked by their cages, and three little heads popped out of hides and whipped into S-curves, I figured... well, it's only been four days since they were fed, but everyone is looking well digested - and HUNGRY. Also, I wanted to thin out the young adult mice in the male cage.

So I grabbed three mice - I want to switch everyone who I can to F/T, but in the meanwhile I've got cages full of mice that I'm not breeding anymore, since I got some rats - and popped them into the cages. Suffice to say that I got a reminder to use the tongs, even when dropping a live mouse in. I didn't get bit, but there were three resounding THUMPs and three fewer live mice. The last tail is vanishing down a throat as I type.

Weights were 165g ('14 Pastel Pied), 155g ('15 Pastel het Pied), and 81g ('15 CH Handsome) as of last week, and they each got a young adult mouse - right around 20g - on the 16th. They got another of about the same size today.

And no, 'Handsome' isn't a morph... at least if it is, it's one I haven't heard of. But handsome he is! Took Lue out the other day, and he was all shimmery with iridescence. He's probably just getting ready to shed.

[EL-Ziggy]

I feed my young and undersized snakes 10-15% of their body weight every 5-6 days. Sometimes they'll get as much as 20% of their body weight.

[LittleTreeGuy]

My '15 is about 170g and she gets fed about every 6 days. It may be the 5th or 7th day, depending on life sometimes, but she is steadily putting on weight, so I don't worry about it too much. Her prey is normally in the 10-15% range as well, if not a tad over on occasion.

[Caspian]

Yep - a 20g mouse should be right smack in the middle in the 10-15g range for the two larger squirms, and quite a bit larger than that, about 25%, for the 81g male - but he's long and skinny, and takes them with no problem at all and a great deal of excitement, which makes me think that he needs a bit more to get some meat on him. I use the 10-15g rule in general for my snakes (except the Kingsnake, who is another matter entirely). I was just surprised that they were so voracious, so soon - really more like three days from their last feeding, rather than four. The little guy, Lue, had a pee and a urate yesterday as well - his first since he arrived - with no poop at all.