Finally....

[WildCreations]

Well last night was a very exciting time for me. I have 3 balls two normal females and 1 pastel male. My male eats anything and everytime i throw something his way. I had these 3 for four months and in those months my females didn't act the least bit interested when i offfered food and it was about 9 months since they ate last.

So last night i bought 2 med. rats just to see what happens. I decided to try to feed them about 9PM once the lights went off and they started roaming. When i tossed the first rat in with the first female i knew it was going to be a great night. The head jerk and the way she took off to the back of the tub after the rat...then in seconds there was screaming from the rat. These are my first balls and i was sooooo very frustrated with them not eating but know it can take some time so last night they both ate and i was so supppper excigted.

Now my question is this, is there a theory out there on how much the food should way based on the snakes wieght? One is around 1100 grams and the other is aroun 1300 grams so what they ate last night was probably small for what they should be eating but i didn't want to push it and deal with two larger rats if they didn't eat.

[DustinB]

They should be eating 10-15% of thier body weight every 7 days for adults I believe.

[guambomb832]

Yea but with huge adults like 3000 grams, your talking like X-large rats, and the most you should ever feed your adult ball python is a medium rat as not to overwhelm ball pythons because when it comes to ball pythons a step down to what they usually eat is way better and since adult ball pythons aren't growing as much as when they were babies they do not need that much food.

[Kaorte]

With a snake that big, you could probably feed 10% every 10 days or so.

When they reach their adult weight and aren't going to grow much more, you can start to feed them less food less frequently. A medium rat every 10 days is probably fine.

[dr del]

Hi,

Adam mentioned at one point that he felt it was better to feed them small rats.

I think the point was to keep them feeding regularly on small meals to help prevent them going on hunger strike.

Typically I can't find his post about it.


dr del

[WildCreations]

So witht he females weighing in at 1000 grams and 1300 grams should i still be feeding weekly or move them to every two weeks??

They should be eating 10-15% of thier body weight every 7 days for adults I believe.

[llovelace]

So witht he females weighing in at 1000 grams and 1300 grams should i still be feeding weekly or move them to every two weeks??

They will do fine on a 100g rat weekly, I have big girls who can take 150g rats weekly, but are out cruising the tank in 5 days looking for food. I don't put my balls on a 10 day schedule, unless I'm out of town.