Dang - I've been away and missed alot of good discussion.

So, yea I have limited experience which is why I'm posting here. Also, I'm kind of experimenting a little bit.

So, I only have one snake and I pay very close attention to him. My assessment that he's ready to eat is based on his behavior patterns through the week. Usually the first few days (depending on meal size) are pretty much down time. He sleeps, gets up to drink water, and then goes back to sleep. Then he has this huge-mongous pee and suddenly he looks like he never ate. I imagine his body flushes alot of the excess fluid from the meeses first. Then, he starts to perk up gradually over the next few days. Then there's this obvious point where he starts getting real active. He'll start spending time outside of his hide sort of gradually moving around his tank and then stopping to stare for a while. He looks kind of like somebody who's lost something but has a ferociously short attention span. He'll also start coming out of his hide when I'm by the cage wanting to get out. If I take him out and set him on the bed he won't hide in the bedding but instead just stare at the room from different angles for long periods of time. Seems like hunting to me.

I've been gradually increasing his meal size. I've always fed every 6 or 7 days and he's pretty bulged every meal. He's fattened up a bit but he's pretty much just getting to the point where he looks like all of the example pictures people have been posting in this thread. I think maybe he was a bit underweight before.