Is my BP overweight? Pictures

[ApathyAngel]

As said, your tank is fine for now - especially given your current life circumstances.

Secondly, if your are comfortable with your BP's weight and food size, I think that's fine. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

However, I wanted to explain my rationale for smaller prey items. Just so you now where I am coming from.

It sounds counterintuitive, but when I went to smaller prey items for Shayna, she actually gained weight. However, she likes to refuse prey when I offer larger food items and she fasts in winter. Feeding her small rats instead of medium, she eats regularly in the spring, summer, and fall.

It's amazing how efficient snakes in general are, but especially "bigger" constrictors like pythons and boas. They can do a lot with very little in terms of prey size. Remember, 90% of our energy goes to maintaining our body heat. They don't have to worry about that. They are also very sedentary. They don't move much. Calorie burn is low on a BP.

Also, in the wild, the rats BP's eat are smaller than medium rats we offer in captivity. African Soft Fur Rats are about the size of a small rat you would find Frozen or in a pet store.

Finally, getting a BP to lose weight is difficult. Better to be feeding smaller meals than larger ones for life expectancy and health.

Whatever you do, good luck with your BP and keep us posted.

That's a good point, for some reason it didn't even occur to me to think about the size of prey she'd be eating in the wild.

I'm reassured by the people saying she's chunky, but not obese, and now I know to ignore the guy who says I should be feeding her more. Maybe he assumed that she fasts and loses weight, so it's possible he thought that I should help her bulk up when she eats to keep her healthy when she refuses (though if she ever starts fasting, I would definitely get a scale and start monitoring her weight more closely. As of now, since she's not a breeder and doesn't fast, I just don't see it as a priority).

I think I might tweak her schedule a tiny bit to help her slim down. I'd rather her be the perfect weight than be chunky. And when I've used all the medium rats I have, I might try and see how she does on small ones. I still have around 15 mediums left, and with things being tight, I don't want to throw them out if she isn't terribly overweight. I might just space her feedings out a little more, and maybe take her to the vet and let them weigh her once a month or so (they said they'd weigh her for free, but only after things open back up a little more).

But yeah, that makes sense to feed her smaller ones (and tbh I'm not mad at the fact that smaller ones are cheaper). I'll keep that in mind when I run out of mediums, and see how she does on smalls.

Thank you!