So I'm relatively new to ball pythons (but quickly becoming addicted!!) and just the other day picked up a pastel female from a woman who was keeping her as a pet. This woman really did seem to love the snake and was sad to let it go (uncooperative landlord, i think she said), but the reason I say sort-of-rescue is because she really didn't seem to know much about taking proper care of balls.

She had her in what looked like at least a 30 g aquarium, with only a heat lamp (on top of a very tall tank) and a small HEAT ROCK which she gave me....gee thanks...so the snake would have 'something to remember her by'. The only hide was nowhere near the warm part of the tank. Little girl was curled up inside her hide and when I held her, she was so cold! When I asked about what she was feeding, the girl told me she was feeding her two f/t mice fuzzies ("she likes to eat two smaller ones, she won't eat a hopper they're too big") once a week. She had the (yet unnamed by me) snake for nearly a year, and claimed that she was at least a year old when she bought her from the pet store.

When my boyfriend and I brought her home, we weighed her quick before putting her away and she was 195g...like I said I don't have extensive experience with balls, but we have another little girl who was born earlier this year and is only about 20g lighter than that. She looks skinny but not horribly. Still, for at least a year, possibly older, shouldn't she be bigger than that?

So basically the questions I want to ask are:
what/how often is best to feed her? I have some small adult mice, would those be too big for her at this size? and also, we checked her over and she looks healthy, but she lived in a less than ideal environment. what should we be looking out for health-wise?

Sorry for the long post (and if I seem paranoid...) I just want to make sure we do whats best for this little girl!