Well, OK, now I can make my confession. We were underfeeding him due to a misunderstanding on my part of what the breeder told me. She had him on rats already when I bought him. I didn't understand that and was feeding him mice which were way undersized. I was also feeding him once every 7 days. As I learned more, about feeding, I started feeding him multiple mice then switched to larger rats. He's now eating one rat pup. Now here's the confession part. I don't feed him according to a schedule. I feed him according to his behavior. When he goes into hunting mode, he gets a rat the next day. Doing it this way, we end up feeding him every 3 or 4 days. There are exceptions. We had one refusal and then he didn't "hunt" again for a while after that so it was 8 days between meals with that incident. Right now, he's in deep blue and hasn't come out of his hide since his last feeding except to get a long drink of water every afternoon. It's been 7 days since he ate last so we're going to offer him a rat this evening when he emerges for his drink.

But for the most part, we're letting him tell us when he's hungry. Since we've been doing that, he's been gaining weight and length. He didn't shed from September, when we got him, until November. I think that's because we were underfeeding him. He's right now in the throes of his second shed. I think this is more normal too than when we were underfeeding the poor little guy.