Slow Grower?????

[Royal Chick]

I will post pictures if needed but don't have any at the moment. I have had my normal female for five years and I am just curious if she is just considered a 'slow grower'. She is 3.5-4.0 ft and around 800 grams. You can not see her back bone and she is fed a small rat once a week every week... is she okay or do I need to up her food? She has been switched to rats since last December (late for switching I know) and she did great with it, no problem whatsoever. I tried a medium rat a few weeks ago and she acted like it was too much, so I went back to the small rats. Tips/ reassurance would be great.

[dart]

800 grams at 3.5 - 4ft? Thats one hell of a thin BP. I've got a few 800g girls right now that are probably under 3. But, to answer your question, yes. That does seem small for a 5 year old female. Not so much for a male. I've seen some males that only reach about 1000g

[satomi325]

I will post pictures if needed but don't have any at the moment. I have had my normal female for five years and I am just curious if she is just considered a 'slow grower'. She is 3.5-4.0 ft and around 800 grams. You can not see her back bone and she is fed a small rat once a week every week... is she okay or do I need to up her food? She has been switched to rats since last December (late for switching I know) and she did great with it, no problem whatsoever. I tried a medium rat a few weeks ago and she acted like it was too much, so I went back to the small rats. Tips/ reassurance would be great.

How often and how many mice did you feed before you switched to rats?

800 does seem small for a 5 year old. I have a 6 month old at 500 grams. But it also depends on the diet and individual snakes. Some are just slow growers.
As long as she looks well muscled, then she should be fine.
Can you provide photos?

[The Serpent Merchant]

At that age I would think that she is done growing... Are you sure that she is indeed a she?

[Annarose15]

I think there's a chance your girl is a boy. It's also possible that she's just a runt. As long as she's eating those small rats weekly and defecating normally (no nasty runny poo), I wouldn't be concerned at all about her weight. Just to clarify, a "small" rat is 50-80g. I would never give an 800g BP a medium rat.

You can also post a few pics just so we can see her body condition.

[Royal Hijinx]

Maybe put her on a 5 day feeding schedule and see how she does. It just may take a little time for the rat diet to really show.

[Royal Chick]

I would feed her three adult mice a week, and we had her probed because i thought she was a male as well but they told me she was female. Like i said she isn't showing a backbone and she is muscled. I'll try posting pics but last time i tried it didn't go well

[Royal Chick]

This was taken a few days ago
After the medium rat, she was stretched for an entire week and really didn't move a lot so i think it was way too much
The day we got her probed

[The Serpent Merchant]

This was taken a few days ago
After the medium rat, she was stretched for an entire week and really didn't move a lot so i think it was way too much
The day we got her probed

Pictures didn't show up, copy and paste the "IMG" code on photobucket.

Might I ask where you got her probed?

[Royal Chick]

If you can't see the pics then idk what i'm doing wrong because i even created a photobucket account for this and i copied the URL like i was told so would someone please help me?