About where do you start switching your females to medium sized rats? Also that's interesting to know about how your 3k+ animals still eat the same sized prey every week.

Another question, when ball pythons get up to that crazy size, does it have any adverse effect on their lifespan and ability to thrive?
Females are to switch to medium which are 80 grams rats around 1200 grams and topping at 150 grams rats for the largest girls.

Obviously big 3000 and 4000 grams females would not get to that weight if they were maintenance fed just to get by.

What people forget is that those animals are very efficient and their metabolism is very different from the time they hatch to the time they are considered adults.

The main issue with BP and feeding is that people over feed their animals, than wonder why they will fast for 2,3 or 6 months.

BP are opportunistic they may eat 3 or 4 rodents and eat nothi bg for months in captivity they get the same prey same size serve weekly.

Another thing to keep in mind is that cases of fatty liver have been diagnose in BP an IMO those will be on the rise.

Yes they can take large prey no they do not need it, pretty much like human I am sure some people can eat a large pizza by themselves doubt they need it.

Long term effect of feeding smaller preys, animals that are feeding with consistence, female that are plump but not fat which can lead to female slugging out, animals that are healthy and not sluggish after their meals etc