Meal Sizes

[neondreams]

Miss Pandora is in my avatar (and I also have one other picture of her in my gallery to give you an idea of her size..I would say she's about 1 1/2 feet.

The petstore was feeding her frozen fuzzy mice weekly and that's what I've been doing too...someone on here suggested I amp it up to a fuzzy rat...suggestions? ideas? oppinions?

[KatStoverReptiles]

A prey item slightly larger than she is at her widest point every 5-7 days. You can also weigh her and then weigh the prey item. It should be around 10-15% of her weight. I do somewhere in the middle of all that depending on what I have on hand, which snake it is and...well...my mood. LOL

I like mine to be on rats as soon as possible in their lives. Just makes it easier when they get older so I can give 1 rat instead of 2 or 3 mice. I have a boa who really likes mice...she's gotta switch. I'm not feeing a 6ft+ boa 8-10 mice weekly... I have a ball who prefers mice as well. Him I'm less concerned with as I WOULD feed him mice his whole life if he wanted. I wouldn't like it, but I would. For him

I heard somewhere that rats were more nutritious but I think this is debated.

[RestlessRobie]

Well as I have said before and heard here petstorse usually do a maintain feed for reptiles to keep them fed but not let them grow fast. I would Feed 5-7 days 10-15% body weight. The snake is hte best way to tell if the want to feed more or less. Easy way to tell if your snake is hungry is look for them to peek out fo their hide waiting for prey to ambush that is usually when I feed my little guy. He eats every 5 days or so I see his little, well not so little anymore, head poking out looking for food. I look for a slight bulge in his middle that tells me he is eating the correct size. Hope this helps
Robie

[neondreams]

Well I don't have a scale (nor do I have the extra $ for one) so I'll have to guess based on how fat she is haha

And unfortunately the peeking out indicator won't work for me, my lady likes to be miss social/curious ALLLL the time (even after being fed).

[RestlessRobie]

The other way to judge prey size is about the same size or a little larger than the largest point of your snakes midsection. BTW if you can catch it on sale the scale at Harbor frieght is pretty cheap.
Robie

[neondreams]

I'll probably eventually invest in a scale so thanks for that info!

And I think the decision is, when I go to buy new frozens I'll probably amp it up because when she eats I do see a bump at first but quickly can't see any so she should be able to handle more I'm thinking

[RestlessRobie]

Here is the scale I use got it for around $10 on sale if I remember right
Robie


http://www.harborfreight.com/digital-scale-95364.html

[Jessica Loesch]

deinitely invest in a scale.
Robie hit it on the head with 10-15%
Def do at least a fuzzy rat. A lot of my bps are that size, and they are eating rat pups (which is just a little bigger).

[RestlessRobie]

Aye my little guy was eating rat pups by week 4 with us he is at 170 or so grams now and packing on the grams weekly. Scale makes it a lot funner too
Robie

[tsy72001]

The vet told me that smaller more frequent meals are MUCH better for balls.