My husband and I adopted a ball python on Sunday from the son of a friend. I've always liked snakes but never had one as a pet. My husband, however, has had pet ball pythons in the past so he is somewhat experienced with them. This one just has a slightly different personality and behavior than what he's had before.

The snake, who I have dubbed Lucifer, is approximately two years old and male. The previous owner was feeding him one live "fuzzy" mouse every week and a half to two weeks. He fed it the Thursday before we got it (so just over a week ago), then he brought another for it on Sunday when he brought it over hoping that it would help the snake settle in to it's new home. It gobbled it up quickly and my husband said that his previous female bp who was not quite as long but a bit "thicker" had been eating small to medium rats and he wondered if these meals that Lucifer has been given simply aren't enough to fill him. I mean, five minutes after he eats you can't even tell he has had a recent meal. So then on Monday he was still acting hungry and my husband wanted him to be well fed and settled in so he would be comfortable with handling Lucifer for the first time in a few days -- so we fed him one more. Then, lets see, Wednesday, he still seemed like he was starving so we got him two fuzzies that day and he ate both without hesitation. Again you couldn't even tell he'd eaten (as far as looking at his body) five minutes after he ate the second one and he wasn't sluggish at all while they digested (which I kind of expected).

He has settled down a lot since that last meal and has cooperated when we've taken him out to feed but I want to get a better idea of how much he SHOULD be given when he is fed so that he doesn't seem to be perpetually hungry.

Also, as a sort of side note... any suggestions for people who have had other pets and are getting used to the behaviors of BPs? For example, I grew up with quite a few different cats over the years and got used to reading their temperament and learning to handle the ones that were kinda moody and liked to bite or scratch. Any suggestions for getting used to reading BP behavior? I was joking with my husband that I'm out to become a walking BP encyclopedia or something... I just like to know everything I can about animals when I handle them -- for my sake and theirs.

Any advice is welcome!