My adult females get offered a feeder every two weeks, adult males every three, unless they are fasting, in which case they get offered weekly. So... feed, wait two (or three) weeks, offer again. If the snake eats, wait or three weeks. If the snake refuses offer again a week later. Most of mine don't eat while in shed either so that affects the schedule.
I also don't worry about the feeder size for my adults. The ones that only eat live get a small rat, period, since a medium/large rat can injure a snake very quickly. So yes, some 2000+ gram females may get a 50 gram rat every two weeks, and even they fast intermittently. The adults that take frozen get a medium rat.
According to my vet:
1) Most snakes in captivity are overfed. Ball pythons tend to regulate themselves well, but other boids and colubrids will eat themselves obese and straight into fatty liver disease which cuts years off their lifespan. In the wild snakes eat intermittently and many species hunt for their food so they are very active. Our pets are pretty sedentary by comparison to their wild cousins.
2) Most snakes in captivity are under-hydrated. Granted he only sees the ones that were kept in imperfect conditions and thus are more likely to have health conditions related to dehydration, so he may be biased. There's nothing wrong with keeping a ball python at 70-80% humidity as long as the enclosure stays scrupulously clean so that issues with mold or scale rot don't develop as a result. Also it's sad but if you purchase a ball python from a big box pet store then you probably need to keep it at a higher than typical humidity for a while since it's very likely to be dehydrated when you bring it home.
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