Quote Originally Posted by Bogertophis View Post
Just so you know: You can actually cause internal injuries (even fatal ones) by stretching a snake's body to measure the length. (Snakes have been injured & killed by law enforcement cluelessly doing that when they measured snakes they confiscated.) Even when being gentle about it- it's easy to under-estimate our strength when incorrectly applied to a snake's body- and it's just not that important to have an accurate length measurement of a snake anyway.

I know of no such charts- young & growing snakes tend to look on the thin side for several reasons:
1. They're eating young rodents (usually) that are more digestible & have more water with less minerals (smaller undeveloped bones) & other nutrients.
2. When snakes grow, they put on tiny amounts of length, so any gain to their body thickness doesn't show up. You just need to be patient...

If a young snake is eating regularly, don't lose any sleep over measurements.

Likewise, guessing the age of a snake is pointless, because snakes grow according to how much they're fed, & how much they can digest (this is totally temperature dependent). FYI, some snake breeders deliberately minimize the growth of their hatchlings by "maintenance feeding"- something I don't agree with & would never do, but many others do. They don't want them outgrowing their minimal housing while waiting to sell them- plus many buyers want cute little ones that aren't yet scary biters. So that makes it very hard to know a snake's age unless the source is honest. With wild snakes, there's no telling as few of them have as much to eat as our captives, & many have to fast through cold seasons.

All I can say is that a 20" BP is probably at least a year old.
thank you for the info.

I did not know that about stretching them, but to be more clear I wasn't actually stretching him.
kinda used my finger to nudge him, but never pulled or anything.
now that I know, I definitely won't ever actually stretch him.

he gets relatively straight while slithering around on my desk.
unless there is a ruler present, then it's like he's screwing with me and doesn't go anywhere near full length. I think he does it on purpose.


I was mostly wondering age for my own curiosity to sorta have an idea where he is in his growth stage.
and the more I educate myself, I believe I was underfeeding him (too small of a rodent) up until his most recent meal.
So I'm guessing he may start to thicken up a little going forward.

again, appreciate the info.
this is my first snake so I'm still learning as I go.