healthy growth rates?

[Blake_Herman]

well I was talking with becky (satanicintention) earlier tonight, and we were discussing what I think is an interesting issue, so I thought I'd post a thread here and see what you all think...

what do you all think is a healthy growth rate for ball pythons? what food do you think is appropriate for various size balls? I just find myself thinking a lot of balls that I see are much smaller than I would expect for their age. I know a lot of mine (and becky's) grow quickly, but I feel like ours aren't the usual... how large do you think a healthy ball python should be at 1 year of age?

I'll let becky speak for herself about her own, but here's a few examples of mine... these are some of mine that are VERY good feeders (miss something like less than 3% of meals offered)... most of the ones that don't eat regularly, don't experience growth like this, which should be quite obvious...

one year old male: ~1,000 grams - one/two adult mice every 5-7 days while > 650 grams, and then small rats after that about every 7-8 days...

one year old female: ~ 1,200 grams - one adult mice every 5-7 days while > 500 grams, and then small rats after that every 7-8 days...

two month old female: ~250 grams - one adult mice every 5-7 days...

any thoughts would be appreciated... I don't feel like mine (specifically those listed) are overweight, none of them have "fat"-folds or anything like that while coiled, and all of them are quite large in length as well...

[ADEE]

im not sure what the right growth for normals should be.. not to mentain the fact i think its possible that every ball is different. we personally are feeding our snakes one rat pup every 5 days, thats all we offer.. they are only a couple months old (the male may be even younger than that) it has helped them put on some weight since we got them only a few weeks ago

[Alice]

Good question. I just averaged the 15 holdbacks and new aquisitions in my colony and these '06ers had an average weight of 635 grams. Now some were late '06ers, but others were July and August so they are almost 1 year old.


I' really like to hear from others who have several ball pythons. Tim? Neil? Brock? Adam? Others?

[Emilio]

My albino is an early 06 and is about 575g's at exactly one year, My normal female Wilma hit 1100g's at one year of age, another one of my normal female's who I got at about 35g's in may of 06 is now 600g's. In my collection female's seem to never refuse a meal, some of my male's have been a little finicky. My feeding day is every 5-7 day's.

[mischevious21]

My females a year and a few months, and though I dont have a scale Ive seen many other balls at her age and she is a MONSTER compared to them!! But then Ive got a male right now, who follows the same feeding' as she did at her age, and hes tiny. So I dont know, it might just depend on the snake.

[Blake_Herman]

I personally think a lot of it is genetics, but I really wanted to see what everyone else thought about it... and another thing that might play a part in it is how long they are with the breeders as babies, being fed small maintenance meals. Do you guys think it affects them long term from that? Or does it depend on how long they were being fed that way? Or is it all just genetics...?

How does everyone feel about what prey is best for various sizes? That's one that has been stumping me, because everyone says an "appropriate" sized meal, but I'm curious to see if everyone's "appropriate" size is the same? I feel like my idea of that is maybe a little larger? And maybe that's because I keep larger species that eat larger meals...?

And as alice had said, I'm curious to see what some of the breeders say that have been working with balls for many years now...

Again, any input or opinions are welcome. I really want to see what everyone thinks...

[Emilio]

All of mine get prey that's a little smaller than their girth.

[Purrrfect9]

My female BP is 15 mo's old and she's probably near 37-40 inches long ( her last shed that I was able to measure was in May, and it was 35 inches long), and I weighed her two days ago and she's 695g. My males quite a bit smaller than she is, probably only 2 1/2 feet long, and weighs around 400g right now. He'll be a year in sept. I feed them both rat hoppers every 5-7 days. Usually 5 because they start roaming by the 4th day. My female has only refused a meal once, and my male is the 'garbage disposal' of the family.

[python.princess]

we don't have a scale but it seemed like when ours were little they grew about an inch a month. they're now a little over 2 years and the last time we measured (couple months ago) they were both a few inches past 3 feet.