I think I am overfeeding but she is very enthusiastic at each feed

[msnoperope]

My ball python is 8 months old. So far we have had no issues with her. For the first 5 months she would eat every 6 days, and we slowly started feeding her more often as she seemed to be looking for food. We are currently feeding her 8g hopper mice every 3 days and im not sure if thats too often for her. She has a very skinny neck it seems and has to stretch a bit to get her current mice down so I am not sure she is ready to go up to the 12g mice. She has never refused a meal and will strike her mice within seconds each time, im just not sure if she is just greedy or actually hungry. We have her out almost every day roaming and she is active outiside her tank unless she is shedding. I have the most recent pictures of her.

[Bogertophis]

Rather than feeding more often than once a week, it's better to size up the prey to what is roughly equal to (or slightly less than) the diameter of the snake at the
widest part of their unfed mid-body. One other thing does occur to me, whenever a snake eats like crazy & doesn't seem to put on the amount of weight you expect
(& it's hard to tell from just these photos, but she does look a bit "string-bean-ish" to me too), is that you should have her stool tested for internal parasites with whom
she may be "sharing her meals". Call the vet & take them a fresh stool sample when she gives you one. It's not hard to de-worm a snake, nor is it risky...just a dose or so of oral medication that's quite safe.

[pretends2bnormal]

8g mice are extremely small for a BP of any age...

Hopper mice (8-12g) are usually only fed to a BP for its first few meals before sizing up to small adult mice (15-20g).

To me, it sounds like you're trying and failing to make up for underfeeding by doing it more often. Frequently feeding a snake can be extremely bad for them, so what you really need to do is feed appropriate prey weekly.

Weigh your snake on a (kitchen) gram scale. Then feed every 7 days a mouse or rat that is 10% of its body weight.

Also, size of the neck is irrelevant. If you were to feed by the diameter of something on a ball python it needs to be the diameter of its thickest part (the midsection of the body) matching the girth of the rodent fed.

If she needs prey more than one size larger, I'd suggest giving her at least 1 of the in between size to get her used to digesting a bit more at a time more gradually. (So if she needs adult mice, feed 1 small adult 1 week, then the full adult sized mouse the next week.)

Feeding chart used here


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[PitOnTheProwl]

Yeah, hopper mice are to get hatchlings right out of the egg feeding.
What is the weight of your animal?

[msnoperope]

Thank you for the advice, we will go ahead and up her size of mice she is fed. She is currently 397 grams.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Hoppers are for hatchlings out of the egg and they move up in size pretty quickly.

At that size she should eat adult mice or rat pups.

[Moose84]

I hate to come in here and notice something else but is that snake in sand substrate?

On the food aspect. I have a 300 ish gram female and she makes quick work of an adult mouse. Hoppers are way too small for that snake.

[reptilemom25]

Hoppers are WAY too small for your girl. That is likely your issue. Like you, I thought there was no way my snake could take larger prey, given the size of her neck. They will definitely surprise you.

I have trouble eyeballing the "widest part of the body rule", so I also check weight of the feeder. Rule of thumb is around 10-15% of body weight. So at 400g that would be 40-60g of food per feed. My normal girl Astrid is approaching a year old and is right at 400g at last weight. She gets small rats that are on the smaller side, around 60g in weight. I don't have access to weaned rats so I have the shop I buy from pull the smallest of their small rats for me, and I feed closer to every 10 days.

[JRLongton]

Skip the mice. Your snake is hungry and anxious for food. Take advantage of this to get her onto rats.

My BEL was one month old when she came to me, and her first feeding was a rat pup.

Their necks may look skinny, but they can stretch!

[bcr229]

I hate to come in here and notice something else but is that snake in sand substrate?

I think you're right.

Get rid of the sand and use only wood-based products like aspen, cypress, coco husk, etc. as substrates if you want a natural substrate. Do not use pine or black walnut.