New ball python over a year old and only 166 grams!

[JodanOrNoDan]

Do you mean my schedule ?

What I meant by "grown slow" is simply that I did not rush them to bring them up to size for breeding. Of course I didn't starve them. They got a "appr" sized meal about once the week. Skipping when in shed.

They did not reach breeding size in one year.

The only time I fed them more aggressively was when I decided to breed the females. Which they did without problem.

Appropriate size can mean many things of course.

I went by the girth of snakes bodies and rodents body, to try to match them up, erring on the smaller (rodent) size.

As adults they were fed about every 2 weeks, but by then most were on medium sized rats. Jag of course, will take large rats now, they disappear without a trace, LOL

I think "maintenance fed" can mean different things to different people. I use it as the opposite of power feeding (while definitely NOT underfeeding, either). I have shared a ton of pictures of all my animals, I don't think either looked small/skinny or fat. Jag is huge, but not fat either

I don't remember ever seeing a snake of yours that looked underfed. LOL. I apologize if you thought that is where I was going. Was just trying to get at a schedule and prey size. The more data we have that shows safe the better off we will be. I believe if anything I error on the too much side even though I follow the guidelines up until I am ready to breed a female. I rely on my snakes to tell me when they have had enough, which though it has worked for me historically may not be the best way to go about things.