is this weight ok?

[FrankieCarbone]

so my 3 month old male BP which i have had for about 5 weeks, ate for the first time last friday (i have a post on general pythons about all this), i have the first feeding attempt was a week after i bought him, and it was a white mice from petland, and so where the other 2 following (one every week) and basically was the same, defensives strikes and thats about it, until last week i found a local guy who has ASF's and i throw in a small fuzzy ASF in there, one defensive strike and 5 seconds later a strike and coil (i guess the defensive strike got that taste of ASF in him and he could;t resist)

Anyway, he definetly appears skinnier then when i first got him, i picked up a digital scale the other day and he weighs in at exactly 61 grams. He might or might not be 4 months old, but when i picked him up in the first week of march i know he was atleast 1 month old, so hes roughly 3-4 months old. Is the weight normal? im pretty sure definetley not. I tried the white mice again since i thought maybe since he took the ASF last week he will maybe get into it and take the white mice, but i guess not, im going to try again tommorrow with another ASF.

What i want to know is should i start doing some sort of fast feeding with him to get his weight up? like maybe a ASF every 4 days or something like that?

He pooped the first week i got him and has not pooped ever since then, not even after taken the ASF last friday.

[JLC]

It could be that the mouse just seems too big for the little fella. I'd stick with what worked for at least a month or two....every five days would be a good schedule, if he'll eat that often for you. He likely will. They really do want to grow when they're that little!

Once he starts to get some solid size on him, then you might try the mice again.

[Homegrownscales]

He's low on a normal scale for baby bps. I've had babies hatch out at 80gs. So a 4month old at 61 is low. But then again. You got him
At a Petstore. They generally get ch babies in fresh from the egg. So he's probably not 4 months old. He's probably more like 2 months old or a month and a half. Petstores are also notorious for under feeding. They general give pinkies as a meal and that is not going to pack on weight to a growing baby. For perspective though how much they weigh all depends on how much he eats. If he's a picky eater he hadn't eaten as much and not gaining as much weight. If he was an aggressive 4 month old feeder is say whoa something is wrong. But there's too many unknowns in Petstore babies.

[Simple Man]

I think that's low weight as the others have said. You might want to try offering smaller meals more often until you get that guy eating steady. My Lemon Blast was November 2010 and she's 220+ empty. She will be turning 6 months pretty soon.

Regards,

B

[FrankieCarbone]

no i got his at the reptile expo that was held in white plains in march.

So what intervals should i feed him? every 5 days? 4...?

Im going to pick up anothe ASF this afternoon to feed it to him tonight. Its been a week.

[Homegrownscales]

Still there's more than 1 importer or breeders that have normals hatch out and sell them right out of the egg. Petstore/ expo. Same problem. Last year I vended at the Machester expo and there were a couple of people that had just hatched babies. 61 grams is pretty normal for a newborn. I just don't see a 4 month old being 61g and still hanging on for dear life. Anyways feed every 5 days. He'll gain weight soon enough.

[Jeo123]

In the beginning, I usually fed twice about every 4 days. Baby's go from being problem eaters to bottomless pits pretty quick.

[FrankieCarbone]

Jeo123

so you were feeding 2 mice every 4 days? if so let me know so i can pick up 2 fuzzies ASF's today instead of one (the guy a get it from is kind of far)

now im starting to get a little worried and i want to get his weight up!

[Simple Man]

Jeo123

so you were feeding 2 mice every 4 days? if so let me know so i can pick up 2 fuzzies ASF's today instead of one (the guy a get it from is kind of far)

now im starting to get a little worried and i want to get his weight up!

I would offer 2 for sure!

Regards,

B

[FrankieCarbone]

good god almighty! my BP was in his hide, i dropped the ASF fuzzie infront of the hide, i was looking inside the hide and he was deep in there, i got a phone call real quick, 3 minutes later i hung up the phone, i take a look in the tank and he already had the fuzzie coiled up!

when hes thru with that one im gonna give him the other.

now this is both good and bad news, the good news is hes eating, the bad news he is apperantly hooked on ASF's. Because yesterday when i tried feeding him the white mice from petland, the mouse was laying infront of the hide too, and he was right infront in the same position as the ASF today, and he was there for like a hour, and he did not pay it any attention whats so ever.

So what should i do? am i going to have to keep feeding hims ASF's? how can i wean him into regular mice???