Almost 4 feet in his first year

[SludgePuppy]

Thank you, I'm really proud of my boy, which is why I worry sometimes haha. He means a lot to me and my boyfriend.

[Godzilla78]

Hey there, I had a similar situation. My first ball python was a young male, and he grew amazingly fast! He just kept getting longer and longer very shed, and grew to 54 inches within 1.5 years or so! I was chocked after hearing about other ball pythons growing much slower. I started to doubt he was a male, as I heard females get bigger. But no, he was just a male that grew long fast. Since getting so long, he eats less frequently and he is not 'fat' like a female. I like the bigger females myself, but the males seem to stay trim and fit in their quest for mating! He constantly wants to get out of his enclosure and find a female these days. He only calms down the he is shedding, or he just ate.

Anyway, yeah so I was shocked too at the rapid growth of my pet snake.

[jmcrook]

Here's pictures of his sheds, I let them dry before measuring so they are not so wet and stretched out

Even after drying the shed skin is significantly longer than he animal it came from. My kalatoa retic gave me an unbroken shed once when she was around 7' and the shed skin measured close to 8.5' after it was dried out.



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[copper]

I've had that thought here too. Not sure of date of birth or sex. I didn't get noodle from a breeder. Please do not judge. First snake, focused on habitat and feeding before the ethics of where to obtain. Noodle was 22-23" estimated to be 3-4 months old and fed pinkies. I fixed that immediately. Five months later "he" is at 32" and 480 grams. Steady growth, eats like a champ. I recently found out while doing research with the seller, that my male is probably 80% female. Has small spurs, and is not gaining girth, still long and lean. He is round and healthy looking. I feed off the weight based chart on here, and monitor for "hungry roaming" just in case. I'm just concerned because if he is a she, I'd expect her to be gaining girth as well as length. Or she is just a thinner female. Or due to her earlier underfed conditions, I may see growth restrictions. I want to get him probed just to get an idea of adult size and feeding estimates (girls eat more over 500 g). Overall I'm glad he is healthy, active, and very social. But the concern is there until I can get him/her sexed.