Your friend is wrong. I breed ball pythons for a living, and all of my hatchlings are offered fuzzy rats as their FIRST meal. The only hatchlings I have ever offered smaller prey to were runts under 50 grams at hatching. They were given crawler mice, or pinky rats. They did not continue to eat pinky rats more than 2 or 3 times before they were moved up to fuzzies.
Give the snake a fuzzy every 5 days. He will eat them. You will also need to continue to increase the size of his food as he grows! Once he's 200 grams, switch him up to crawler rats. At 400 grams, I give them hopper rats, and snakes 600 grams and up get small rats, here.
If you're not sure, get a kitchen scale that weighs in 1 gram increments. But, your snake is SKINNY. It is better to feed one larger prey item rather than several smaller items. If he can and will eat 2 pinkies, then pinkies are too SMALL. Your prey item should be as big around as the WIDEST part of your snake--like the fuzzy in the photo. And your snake should actually be wider than it is, for its length.
I do not suggest giving him hopper mice. He's on rats, keep him on rats. It's much easier to keep good weight on a ball python when they eat rats. (Provided you give them rats that are the right size).
Reply With Quote