Is this too skinny?

[spellbound04]

He's about 18 inches long and about a year old, I feed him a medium sized adult mouse about once a week. If he is, does that mean he's unhealthy and is the solution to feed him more often and how much? I dont want to powerfeed him, but I want him to be healthy.

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[tttaylorrr]

python bodies should be round, and yours here looks a bit triangular. not too skinny, but could use a few big meals. any chance you can switch to rats?

[spellbound04]

python bodies should be round, and yours here looks a bit triangular. not too skinny, but could use a few big meals. any chance you can switch to rats?

OK good to know. He already struggles a bit with the size I'm feeding him (is it true the food is supposed to be only as large as the widest part of his body?) But maybe I'll begin to feed him more often.

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[Kcl]

He is somewhat skinny and could probably use more food. When you say he struggles with the size, how long does it actually take him to get it down? What looks like struggling to us can be perfectly normal for a snake. Also, weighing the feeder and the snake and feeding 10-15% up until they're on small rat size is way easier for me personally than trying to visually determine. Widest part of their body is a reasonable guide, but they can eat up to 1.5x as wide as their body. 1x as wide as their body is a better goal but something a bit bigger isn't really a concern.

[tttaylorrr]

OK good to know. He already struggles a bit with the size I'm feeding him (is it true the food is supposed to be only as large as the widest part of his body?) But maybe I'll begin to feed him more often.

when the snake eats, you should see a bit of a bulge but not like it ate a football. i tend to always think my snakes are smaller than they are, and sometimes i physically hold the snake up next to the rat (before thawing) so i can get a better idea of the prey size.

[Kcl]

when the snake eats, you should see a bit of a bulge but not like it ate a football. i tend to always think my snakes are smaller than they are, and sometimes i physically hold the snake up next to the rat (before thawing) so i can get a better idea of the prey size.

I'm pretty sure mine would try to eat it if I tried that. Silly derps.

[tttaylorrr]

I'm pretty sure mine would try to eat it if I tried that. Silly derps.

i do it in the morning while they're slow, and not very often.

[spellbound04]

He is somewhat skinny and could probably use more food. When you say he struggles with the size, how long does it actually take him to get it down? What looks like struggling to us can be perfectly normal for a snake. Also, weighing the feeder and the snake and feeding 10-15% up until they're on small rat size is way easier for me personally than trying to visually determine. Widest part of their body is a reasonable guide, but they can eat up to 1.5x as wide as their body. 1x as wide as their body is a better goal but something a bit bigger isn't really a concern.

That's helpful to know. It takes him like 25-35 minutes for the whole process from grabbing it and then going back into his hide. He just has a hard time with figuring out how to get his mouth around the head and I've had him have a mouse 2/3 of the way down and then he lifted his head to use gravity to help it down and ur was to heavy and pulled his head down and it slipped out if his body. That was very traumatizing for both of us so I'm very careful now with the sizes I give him

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[Kcl]

25-30 minutes is perfectly reasonable even without the process of figuring out how to put mouse face -> snake face. As for the gravity incident, personally I would just chalk that up to baby snakes being bad at things sometimes. It shouldn't have hurt him. Honestly, baby snakes? Just bad at understanding how to eat properly often. It took mine a year to stop trying to eat his by starting everywhere but the face. He also used the gravity trick a few times. Anything that's 10-15% of his body weight or the width of his body to slightly larger depending on how you choose to determine should be just fine. He's a baby and he's learning but he'll be ok even though it looks awkward to us.

Also, taylorr - lol. If it works for you, more power to you.

Hopefully mine would have the sense not to try for something that's not even warm but who knows? He might think that if it smells like rat, it = rat or he might not. The garter snakes meanwhile WILL try to eat anything that's vaguely food scented and sometimes things that are not even food scented if they get excited (e.g. plastic skull decoration, the glass side of the tank, my fingers when they were mad about their diet), so they've made me deeply wary...

[Lizardlicks]

Yeah, that's not struggling, that's just typical BP loveable derpiness. They really are very silly snakes.