baby BP weight and feeding questions

[sunnig96]

Hi! I posted recently about my new ball python seeming stressed out, and so I changed his cage up and now he's hanging out in his hides waaaay more often. But now I have a question about feeding! So I've had him for two weeks and fed him hoppers twice (about the size of the biggest part of his body), and he is a really great eater. But I'm worried I might not be feeding him enough? I feed him on Fridays, but I've noticed he always seems to be super active about a day or two before his feeding day! He roams around the tank like he's looking for something. Does this mean he might be hungry and looking for food? Also, when I got him I noticed that he seemed really skinny, but I thought it was just because he's a baby. Is this too skinny for a male baby BP? I put a pencil in for size reference. Underground reptiles told me that he is around 2-4 months old.

[Craiga 01453]

Hello, This should help







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[tttaylorrr]

you're seeing typical hunger behavior, which is a good thing!

he is skinny, but he's also a baby. as long as he's eating he's in good shape.

refer to the guide posted by craigafrechette above (as he might need to be upped on prey size) and you're golden.

[SDA]

Doesn't sound like you are underfeeding at all. Looks like a healthy youngling and by getting good feeding responses twice now sounds like you are off to a great start.

My advice is get used to weighing your snake on a decent kitchen scale. Knowing the weight does wonders for better understanding the growth and when to size up on food.

[oodaT]

Agreed, doesn't sound like underfeeding to me.

Now I dont know everyone's snake but if yours is like my Spider female i have, she is a straight pig. I'm about to move her up a size from hoppers, only because when i fed last night, hoppers to all right now, she pounded the hopper immediately, got him down and was still cruising around her tub. Offered another and no hesitation, pounded another, got it down then went to her hide. Now these weren't the "largest" hoppers per say, they were about 12g each and last i weighed her she was about 150ish.

And as SDA said, a kitchen food scale will help wonders. Walmart has them for 20 bucks, weigh's up to 5000 grams.

[Craiga 01453]

Hopper mice are too small for an established BP. BPs eat hoppers for generally their first 3-5 meals only and then graduate to small mice or are transitioned to rats with rat fuzzies. The prey item should be 10-15% of the snake's body weight for juveniles.

Your snake is roaming and looking for food because he's hungry. Time to up your prey size.

Your snake looks healthy and well established, so no real harm in not switching yet, but at this point it's time to up prey size.

[Sunnieskys]

2nd what craig said.