Female Ball Python Growth Question

[SnekNoodle]

Hey y’all, I had a question about my 5.5 month old female BP’s growth. I’ve seen a bunch of pics online of older BP’s and they all look tiny compared to my female, Octavia. As I said she’s 5.5 months old, and is already nearing 3 foot long (estimate) and is feeding on small rats which fit her size perfectly. I currently don’t have a gram scale and she’s deep in shed so I don’t want to get her out to measure her. She seems to have shed every 3-4 weeks consistently since we got her and quickly grew from hopper mice to now small rats. Her head is a bit bigger than the size of the top knuckle to the tip of my thumb. I’m just wondering if this is normal growth rate for her age or if she’s a bit larger than normal? I’m hoping she might be a bit larger! Haha. Side note, she’s been the sweetest reptile we’ve ever owned and not once shown any signs of aggression, nor has she ever missed a feeding. She switched from live mice to F/T rats with zero protest and every time has taken her rats (knock on wood lol).

[Lord Sorril]

You're lucky--every year I have one or two super fast growing female ball pythons hatch out and they are bitey little monsters and stay that way until they reach their 'adult' size (then they totally mellow out). I would say their growth rate is about 4X average.

[MattEvans]

Their growth rates vary between animals and genetics. And then the stages in their lives. With most of my knowledge and experience in mammals and birds and their growth, the allocation of energy for growth when young goes more into bones to build the structure and then switches into muscle to fill out the frame with age.

MY first ball python a female grew to over 40 inches in the first 10 months. Hit 1500 grams at 46" around 18 months good body condition but i could still wrap a hand around her. 22 months old now she's over 1800grams, and my finger tips dont even touch her belly scales at her thickest part. Her mom is a big snake aswell.

[SnekNoodle]

Yeah she’s been ridiculously sweet no matter what we do. She actually only even hissed once when she was in shed and I took her out and even then it was more of a short huff. Anyways we just measured her and she was 32 inches and wouldn’t stretch all the way out so she is around 3 foot and about 5 months old!

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah we just measured and she’s about 32 inches long and wouldn’t stretch out all the way, so when stretched she’s probably about 36+ inches! Very excited she’s hit 3 feet at five months old!