Feeding question

[Physician&Snakes]

Here is the background. I have a beautiful ball. She got up to about 1000g and stopped eating. I didn't start worrying till she started loosing weight. She seemed to drop weight fast and got down to 800g. I took her to a friend and they said she was ok as she didn't look thin (she was a bit pudgy to start with). When she got down to 700g I asked another friend to look at her. They said she had scale rot (even to me her belly looked ok but I am no expert by a long shot) and he got her cleared up and eating again. My question is now that she is back should I feed her 2 mice at a time (she can hold 4 at a time) and let her get a bit hungry between feeding or should I feed her as much as she will eat at each feeding? I don't want her to stop eating again.

Also they said she had a bad case of scale rot. Can someone explain this to me? How does a snake get it and what did I miss as far as symptoms? She wasn't wheezing, no odd color scales. I use F10 for cleaning cages and clean them at least once a week (unless they spill their water then if it get humid in the cages I clean them). I usually wait for at least 30 seconds for the F10 to clean before I wipe the cages down. I am trying to wrack my brain to figure out what I might be doing wrong.

It has been 2 years since I lost my albino girl and to this day it haunts me. I often wonder what I did wrong and when one of my snakes stop eating I freek a bit. I thought scale rot showed in a red belly. To me this girls belly was white. What did I miss? Any help is appreciated. Should I clean the cages differently or should I just throw them all out and get new cages?

Scale rot or "blister disease" as it is called as well, is usually caused by too much moisture in the environment. These condition cause thinly walled fluid packed vesicles to expand. This excess fluid is a breeding ground for bacteria and if untreated everything goes down hill from there. One thing you can do to prevent this is by keeping humidity in the correct levels and using a substrate like cypress that has a natural pH to it and will help keep the bad bacteria out. Mader has a very detailed discussion on reptilian dermatology in his book Reptile Medicine & Surgery, I actually flipped through my copy before posting just to be safe.