Question about proper weight

[artgecko]

Thanks guys!
I haven't weighed her in a long time.. I'll actually have to find my scale (we moved over the summer and I have no idea where it is).
I think I will do another small tonight and then look at the prey size vs. her for next week.. I will also try to weigh some of the feeders I use to see what they are weight-wise.

[artgecko]

Ok.. When getting my feeders together for tonight, I took a look at her and the "medium" rats. I think she can handle one of the ones I have that is on the smaller side, so I will try it tonight. I will still try to get a pic for you guys, but it'll probably be tomorrow.

Thanks again for your advice!

[Sauzo]

From what I have ran into about store sizes is every one seems to have different definitions of what is what. That is why I go by weight on ball pythons under 500g. One reptile shop I used to buy from, their mediums looked like larges. The shop I buy from now breeds their own rats but they classify them as pinkie, fuzzy, weaned, small, medium, large, jumbo. So fuzzy to them is anything from your normal idea of a tiny rat with peach fuzz on it all the way up to eyes opening. So I say take anything said with a grain of salt since you are the only one who knows the exact size of your snake and the size of the food. Like I said though, I used to weigh the first one I got to get an idea of what size I needed from that store. Once I got the general idea, then I could just eyeball them. Also helps that they bring the rats out for me to look at. Plus knowing the weight helps a lot if you plan to order frozen from online as they all list the weights of their prey so you know exactly what you need. But once your BP gets over 500g, then you can just go to small rats and keep him/her on that for the rest of their lives.

[kitedemon]

I think that every 'method' needs to be tempered with common sense.

Clearly a small rat is too small for a large female. I have on occasion given her 'left over' rats not taken. The smalls are quite funny she strikes and has nothing to constrict, only the hind legs and tail are not in her mouth. The other end of the scale is even 10% is a huge rat, 400gm, using the diameter would be a huge rat as well. She is slightly bigger around than a pop can. That is why my old adults get less they simply don't need that much.

You have to be reasonable with such things.

[George1994]

I think that every 'method' needs to be tempered with common sense.

Clearly a small rat is too small for a large female. I have on occasion given her 'left over' rats not taken. The smalls are quite funny she strikes and has nothing to constrict, only the hind legs and tail are not in her mouth. The other end of the scale is even 10% is a huge rat, 400gm, using the diameter would be a huge rat as well. She is slightly bigger around than a pop can. That is why my old adults get less they simply don't need that much.

You have to be reasonable with such things.

This post is really all that needs to be said, common sense prevails!

[kitedemon]

Sadly I have had people tell me, in the past, I should be feeding 20%+ to all snakes... (800gm! )

I have at least three that would be on rabbits if I tried that. Not always common, sense.

[200xth]

Clearly a small rat is too small for a large female.

That's not necessarily true. I guess it depends on your definition of a small (which can vary greatly, which is why I like weights rather than descriptions).

Plenty of large females have done well on a 60g to 65g rat once a week (admittedly with the very occasional double feed of someone else's leftovers).

[Joe balls]

One thing to try instead of adult mice would be jumbo mice. Smaller than a small rat but larger than adult mice.

Took the words from my mouth, I was gonna suggest a retired breeder mouse. Big girl

[kitedemon]

That's not necessarily true. I guess it depends on your definition of a small (which can vary greatly, which is why I like weights rather than descriptions).

Plenty of large females have done well on a 60g to 65g rat once a week (admittedly with the very occasional double feed of someone else's leftovers).

Hosted on Fotki

60gm rat is too small for her to constrict. 1% meal is very small.

[Sauzo]

Jumbo mice and rats aren't that good for snakes. They generally have a lot more fat on them which snakes don't process too good. Most jumbos are just retired breeders anyways. The best feeders are medium to large of either rats or mice. And as for size, remember when a snake gets a couple years old, it doesn't need that much food really. It will be more of a maintenance diet. Remember, our snakes are nothing like their wild counterparts. Ours get to be lazy, never need to search for food, don't need to find a suitable hideout or temps, about the only thing they need to do is stick their head out of the their hide to get to the water bowl or crawl out to take a poop. So generally our snakes will expend next to nothing energywise so they don't need big meals. Big meals plus lazy is just going to make for a fatter snake and fat snakes are not healthy snakes.