basic understanding of the animals would allow you to know ball pythons eat rodents, garter snakes, who are not pythons, not the same size, and not from the same continent or climate as ball pythons, eat a lot of fish and amphibians in the wild. and trust me, ive had them, feeding fish is worse. feeder fish also are terribly unnutritious and theres a good chance they carry parasites and such. plus its really really messy, compared to rodents at least

i also start all the balls on rats, thats all they get