Quick history. I adopted him the Monday before Thanksgiving. He is ~3-4 years old and the previous owners had him for ~2 years. When I got him it had been ~2 weeks since he ate. The previous owners were giving him one "big" small rat every two weeks. I fed him a small rat on Thanksgiving in the bath tub like they had done. The next time I fed him was December 13th which was 17 days later. I was trying to switch to F/T and reading here people went an extra period before trying the switch to make sure they were hungry and the normal period was seven days. Seventeen days between feeding was about normal for him though.

When I got the frozen rats I got a live small rat also incase he didn't take frozen. He took the frozen so I caged the rat and kept it in my room. All week long he hasn't been in his hide much at all. I got the impression that he was still hungry but I was worried something was wrong with my husbandry even though nothing had changed in that department. I weighed him this week and found:



A "big" small rat is about 84 grams which is not an adequate meal so I knew he was probably still hungry. I wasn't comfortable with feeding multiple items at a time or in a short period so I was going to stick with the one food per seven days that I have found here to be common for adults. He was getting one small rat every two weeks and I was bumping it up to one per week, twice as much.

Saturday, six days later, my girlfriend was coming by so, trying to get her more on board with the snake thing, I told her I'd offer him one while she was here. I get the rat thawing a couple hours before she is supposed to be here and I put Lunchbox Jr. (The live rat) in the room so he can prescent it (Moved him out a couple days ago when it got too hot for a mammal in a tub), so he has a job now. She shows up...love, love...kiss, kiss... it's about 6pm and I put the rat in the enclosure and he gets it so quick she asks if I can replay it. We go to dinner.

A couple hours later she is gone and I go to check on my snake. He is in the same exact position as he was when he took the first one. He is not relaxed (I would describe that as having a straight neck and head resting on something). He was still aggressive (head in the air, neck in an "s"). I thaw another rat and feed it to him around 10pm. He took it and had it down faster than the first. After this rat I thought maybe I should have weighed them to know exactly what they were.

My girlfriend came back because she forgot something and we got to talking. Fast foward almost four hours and I go to check on my snake again. He is in the exact same position he was in for the first two rats. I decide to thaw another rat. An hour later I look in on him and he is still there so I go prepare the third rat and bring it into the room. I weighed it at 60 grams, so this was potentially 180 grams in one feeding which would be ~16% of his body weight, not bad. He is aware of my movements and is at the front of the tank looking out at me. His body is weaved around his water bowl and back around the tree fixture in there. I put the rat in to lead him back around the tree to make striking happen in a more open area. He grabbed it as soon as I put it close and quickly swallowed it. A minute after he had it down he went into his hide and I walked out of the room.

I checked back 10 minutes later and he is so big around he can't fit in his hide. Hahaha! I know that's not really funny because stress could cause some problems if he doesn't feel secure but he didn't look like the same snake I had yesterday. By not fit I mean he got through it one time but wasn't able to double back and wind himself in it. I threw a towel over his entire tank.







Some questions:

The first rat had some blood come out of it's nose when I thawed it and more came out inside the tank when he ate it. While trying to eat it by the leg he dragged it through his water bowl. He eventually dropped it so I grabbed it by the tail, it's head soaking wet and cold, and dangled it in front of him and he got it properly and swallowed it. Should I wait 48 hours to clean this stuff up considering he's not even in a hide?

Are there any long term effects from underfeeding?

Can you over-feed a snake?