Things you wish you knew before getting a ball python

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Wish I read more about the approximate weight an animal should be at a given age. I bought 2 ball pythons (the first I've owned) from a very experienced and reputable breeder (Garrick DeMeyer from royalconstrictordesigns). The weight was listed at 150ish grams for 11 month old snakes. I had no idea at the time how undersized that was. I don't even know how it's possible to have a ball python and be feeding it consistently for nearly a year with it only growing to 150 grams. The other snake was only slightly bigger. I've had them for about 2 months now. Have been offering adult mice every week (occasionally more) to put some weight on them.

Birthdays were listed as 8/18/16 and 8/19/16 on the form they arrived with, so now one of the snakes is over 14 months old and weighs 270 grams! The other has a greater feeding response and I've gotten him up to about 400 grams. So I actually put about the same amount or significantly more weight on these snakes in 2 months than Garrick DeMeyer did in 11. And I wasn't even overfeeding them. They ate mostly 1 adult mouse a week. There were 2-3 weeks where they ate 2 per week, and 1 week where the male ate 3 adult mice (he ate 2 in one sitting and a couple days later ate another that one of my other snakes refused- didn't want to waste it). Other than that, they ate 1 mouse per week.
I would really like to know how he managed to only get a ball python to 150 grams after 11 months of life.

It's not the biggest deal because they are healthy snakes and that's what I care most about, but I do have plans to breed and seeing as the snakes I bought were an albino and an albino pinstripe, I could have got them from any number of reputable breeders who would have likely had them at a higher weight. Just assumed a reputable breeder would have them at a normal weight. I am still new to pythons, but from what I've seen on forums and youtube it isn't uncommon for a yearling snake to be 500+ grams. Mine were 150!

150 grams does not mean is it underweight here is a new thing for you to learn, it's not about weight it's about proper body proportion.

Weight vary greatly from one individual to another I have animal that are a year and weight in at 1200 grams some that are 400 grams.

There are many things that affect weight, size out of the egg, how fast fast the animal get stated some may take 2 months (that means other can get that much of a head start, prey size, feeding frequency, skipped meal, fast and most importantly genetics, some animals are predisposed to be BIG.