Adolescent/Adult Feeding

[BJJPython]

Okay quick question. I've always gone by the 10-15% weight rule for feeding my BP, Lucifer (1.5 yr old male Super Pastel **hopefully I'll be unlazy and get new pics cause he's really pretty, no browing to really speak of**) but I kinda fell into the habit of feeding him 3 mice/week. Each one is roughly 20g, maybe 22g, but all in all its around 60g of food.

I've tried swapping to rats, and he will have nothing of it. (I think it might be because we have pet rats (not food! and they are also awesome!) and they live in the same room as he, so he smells them all the time and doesn't associate that smell with food).

Anyway. Lucifer is around 1,000g (he was 994g 3 weeks ago right after deficating) and has been growing at a pretty steady clip, but at this point, its hard to tell if he is still growing or not, he's just so big! I was under the impression that males typically grow slower than females, and comping to my brothers female who is now 2 years old, maybe a hair shy of it, but is around the same size, 1,000g.

So this is the longwinded question of, am I feeding Luci too little? He appears to still be growing and healthy, but at what age do you cut that 10-15% of their weight down, and how far? When are they adults? I don't feel like he's starving to death, but isn't obese either (no spaces betweent he scales or anything like that). I think I'm doing fine, but want to know from the pro's! Thanks!

[Kaorte]

60g a week is fine. I feed around 75g a week to snakes that size (which is about the same as a small-medium rat).

At this point, I would say your snake is mostly done growing and will just grow very slowly from here on out. At this point, just feed the equivalent of a small rat once a week and you should be good to go.

I would say that the female at 1,000g at 2 years old is a bit small. My one year old just reached 1,000 a few months back. Most females are of good breeding weight at 2 years old, between 1,500-2,000g.

[Mike Schultz]

I'd switch to rats if you can- they are healthier. (that and its a lot easier to feed one item per week than to deal with three little mice)

[BJJPython]

Believe me, I have tried on numerous occasions to swap to rats. For some reason he really is adamant on mice. It doesnt matter if the mouse is wet or barely even warm, he takes it within 5 seconds max. Rats...I put in there and he just doesn't seem to get that predatory instinct. He'll go over to it because the manner in which I approach him would suggest that it's food, but he gets up to it and just smells it and leaves it be.

Any suggestions on easy methods to swap him over to rats? We've tried a few times, no luck.

So to recap, at a year and a half (maybe a bit under there, but on or abouts) 1000g is fairly healthy and nothing abnormally big/small? I kinda just let feeding stick with the 3 mice (comes in the 3 packs) so I didn't really think much of it until the other day. 5-7% body weight for food is decent?

BTW at what age do you stop using the 10-15% method?

[Kaorte]

If you want to switch him to rats try not feeding him for 2 weeks and then get a live mouse and put it in the room and then offer the rat. There are a lot of things you can try. Thankfully, I haven't had to try any of them cause my snakes will eat anything that I offer to them.

1000g for a year and a half old male sounds perfectly normal. I would say around 10% body weight once they are around 1,000g is good.

[BJJPython]

Is there any other way than to use live mice? I don't have a problem with feeding live, but he's been on FT for a while and I don't want him to think he's getting live from now on, cause he isnt. That coupled with the fact that he is possibly the dumbest snake (he very often misses the FT when its sitting right in front of his face and has even managed to get his teeth stuck in himself and coiled himself, THAT is a story for another time though).

Also I never prescent, I just give him his food and he gets the idea. Think Prescenting would be a good idea? He lives in a house with pet rats in the same room as him so he's probably used to that. Would prescenting with a mouse entice his feeding instict do you think?

Thanks for all the help btw, keep it coming, always willing to learn! He's my only BP but he really is an amazing pet, he is actually very interactive with us and I like to learn more to spread the good word on pythons!