Feeding

[smithjd]

I recently got a 3 year old male ball python, from someone who could not care for it any longer. Ive had him for about a month now and he appears to be in good health. I feed him 1 mouse a week and he devours them pretty quickly. I was wondering how I could tell if I should be feeding him more.

[JLC]

Yeah, he should probably be eating a bit more. You can try switching him to a single small rat per week. But sometimes if they're used to one particular rodent, they won't switch (or it can be very difficult to finally get them to switch). So if he's stuck on mice, you can feed him 2-3 mice per week...all in the same feeding session...not spread out over the week.


If you're feeding pre-killed for frozen/thawed, then you can put all the mice in at once and see how many he wants to eat. If you're feeding live, put them in one at a time. Wait for him to completely finish the first mouse and start looking around as if hunting for more, then drop the next mouse in.

Hope that helps some!

[smithjd]

I fed him one mouse tonight and he went in his hide after eating, like he usually does, but immidiately after he poked his head, could this mean he is still hungry, and if so should i feed him another tomorrow or wait til next week and feed him 2 or a maybe a small rat

[tigerlily]

If you want to offer multiples, then offer them the same night. After the first one is down, wait a couple minutes (5-10) then offer the second. It's not recommended to feed more than once a week. Feeding two mice is fine, but if you want (and can consistantly find them) you can switch to small rats.

[jknudson]

Welcome! I'm not going to just regurg what they all just said because its good advice as is...but here's our wonderful caresheet for you. If you had any husbandry questions at all it should clear them up.