switching from one week to two weeks?

[martin82531]

It can be done, but I couldn't tell you any breeders off hand that would because quicker they get to size the quicker they can try to breed. If I wasn't breeding, I'd say honestly switch to a 10 day feeding schedule with appropriately sized prey.

Don't pay any attention to the 10-15% of the body weight rule. That's something that should honestly stop getting posted. I mean realistically how many keepers that are only keeping a few snakes actually have a scale. Then of those keepers 99% of them probably don't breed their own rodents, so it's not like somebody is really going to take a scale to a pet store and start weighing rats/mice. This is why the 10-15% thing should stop being posted altogether.

I think the 10 - 15 percent rule still serves a good purpose, especially for new Ball Python owners. For someone new to reptiles and even rats for this matter, this rule is a nice baseline to go by. For me, being a new owner when I picked up my normal python, I didn't want to "eyeball" the rat or guess if it was the right size, I wanted to make sure I gave it exactly the size he needed. (just me being ocd) I didn't take my scale to my local pet store, but I use to ask them to weigh them before I bought the rat to make sure they were the right size.

Having two Ball Pythons, for a little over a year now, I'm much more comfortable visually picking out the appropriate size food for my guys. Only reason I even weigh the rats now is just for my feeding records. I think if the 10 - 15 rule didn't exist, we would see a lot more threads asking, "is this rat ok for my snake".

The 10-15 general rule of thumb, for me, was really helpful when I first entered this hobby.


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