I'm probably the odd one out here...I got my retic at 6 months old, and her breeders were underfeeding her...a single mouse fuzzy every 2 weeks.

This was her when I got her, she was 150 grams and 3' at 6 months old.




~6 months later, she reached 4'-4.5' and was eating either 2 small rats or a weaned and a small every 2 weeks.




At 2 years, she reached 7' eating jumbo rats.




The most recent photo I have of her, but she's grown another foot since. She isn't currently with me, though, so no recent photos (this was from last year). This is once I started noticing issues in her and another snake (both appear much healthier now).



I started her out on rat pups every 2 weeks, and she quickly moved on to weaned rats every 2 weeks. I put her on rats 10-15% of her weight weekly when she was eating small rats and then 15-20% of her weight weekly for a short time until she started on large rats, and then I went back to 2 weeks. She's now ~9' and eating a colossal rat or 1 lb rabbit every 2 weeks, and will be eating monthly as an adult.

There was a period where I was dealing with some health issues, so she's fallen behind on her growth over the past year, but I'm hoping now that she appears to be healthier, she'll start growing again. I'm suspecting it might have been the air quality in our last home, since the few snakes showing issues have greatly improved now that they're removed from that location. It got to the point we could hardly breathe, the home had to be condemned due to water damage, and we didn't realize just how bad it was.

I'm currently feeding her weekly again, so hopefully she picks back up growth. She's always been a spotty grower, though. Even if I fed her over 20% of her weight, and did it weekly (or even more often), she still would not grow for up to 7-8 months at a time, and then all of a sudden put on a foot or two of growth within a month or two, and then take forever to grow once again. Doesn't matter if I feed her big or small prey, every 5-7 days, 2 weeks, or 3 weeks, she grows at her own pace. I haven't really noticed any skinniness from her spacing out her feedings, and she has a low feeding response to begin with. When I started her on 1 lb rabbits early (she was maybe 7.5'), she began to refuse food after just a few meals, so I stepped her back down to 1/2 lb rabbits every 2-3 weeks during that time, and now she'll take a 1 lb rabbit weekly no problems at ~9'.