Quick Question on Feeder Size

[Ian C]

I think the other questions are how old is your snake? How much do they weigh? Do you have a photo where we can see how her body condition is?

If she's older than 2, she may be trying to pound down extra calories for breeding prep. Even when not introduced to a male, they will still go through a cycle and possibly ovulate.

A general rule of thumb is to look into a meal size that is around 10% of their body weight.
The other is to feed the same or slightly larger than the widest point of a BP's body.
They're not 100%, but generally do well in getting you started on good meal sizes. Then from there it's a combination of monitoring the body condition and adjusting feed schedule to make sure they're maintaining a good look.

Bogertophis gives some good advice too. We do tend to see a lot of overweight BPs. And doubling in size that quickly is a little much. If the size does look to be about where she needs to be, I would try to find some around the 150g range to feed for a couple weeks before jumping to 100g. Just to avoid a regurge

She's a year old. Not 100% on her weight, she wouldn't sit still long enough for me to weigh her tonight.

I had watched a video tonight of how to select a feeder size on a channel I'm sure most of you are familiar with - Snake Discovery. She had a suggestion to take a piece of paper, lay the snake on it, and quickly take a pencil and trace the outline of her widest point, then a rat can be placed on that and compared. Turns out the rats we bought are just slightly bigger than the outline we drew. Pretty crude measurement, but easier than holding it right next to her body (especially when she's clearly hungry).

Here's a couple of pictures of her tonight. She wouldn't cooperate with stretching her out, so it's all wrapped around my wrist. Last time I measured her though, she was just shy of 30 inches long. I think she looks healthy, but you guys will be able to tell better.