Questions

[Mendel's Balls]

We are using newspaper as a substrate right now.....our ball sometimes likes to crawl under it.....We have both our flexwatt and UTH on thermostat to prevent thermal burns but is this normal? I know I read that they like to burrow underground sometimes in the wild.....

When we fed him on Tues (Apr 4th) we feed him a F/T fuzzy and he took it right away. I thought that this was an adequate prey item for him....but Amy worried that maybe we should feed him something bigger like a hopper....She worried that he might be still hungry.

Those at the pet store said they were feeding him frozen fuzzies.

[mr~python]

mine like to make little "tents" from their newspaper too, its normal.

for feeding give him a prey item the same girth around as he is at the thickest part once a week.

[tigerlily]

Are you talking a fuzzy mouse or a fuzzy rat? Does the fuzzy leave any notieable lump when you feed it? Do you know how much your bp weighs?

[Mendel's Balls]

Are you talking a fuzzy mouse or a fuzzy rat? Does the fuzzy leave any notieable lump when you feed it? Do you know how much your bp weighs?

Morty weighs 124 grams......

We feed him a mouse fuzzy.....No notieable lump was present.....

[Evan Jamison]

At 125 grams, you could easily feed him a weaned mouse if not even a little bigger. I offer hopper mice to my hatchlings as their first meal, then switch them over to rats. Most hatchlings usually average between 50-80 grams to give you an idea. Hope this helps.

[DrEwTiMe]

one sounds about right. last time i weighed my snake she was 240 grams and she gets 2 regular size white mice every 7-10 days. so you sound right on target feeding wise if you give one adult mouse a week.

[frankykeno]

I'd try upping that prey size. Fuzzy mice are quite small, heck our milksnake Emi eats fuzzy mice. Maybe a nice fuzzy rat instead or a rat pink then if that is accepted well for a couple of feeds go up to fuzzy rats. Most BP's can take a rat pink from the time they are hatched so I've been told (and confirmed on Malachi's feeding card) so I wouldn't worry at all about either moving to rat pinks/fuzzies or if you want to stay with mice moving up in size. Basically an adult mouse of average size is about equivalent to a rat pup (the stage just prior to weaning) so a nice small juvenile/almost adult mouse will probably be just fine. Just check out it's butt (the widest girth of a mouse) and if it looks no larger than your BP's biggest girth it should do just fine. Usually we give our snakes 1 extra day of no handling after any prey size or number change just to be safe.

[cassandra]

for feeding give him a prey item the same girth around as he is at the thickest part once a week.

Personally, I can't get rats smaller than young adults where I am (unless I buy frozen online), but the above is the golden rule for feed size. =)