I think the thing to bear in mind is what an artifical situation we keep captives balls in. In the wild I think things are very much feast or famine or at least very irregular meals. Our nice cosy cages, regular feeds and reduced exercise are a pretty abnormal environment. Growing BPs seem to have a incredible capacity to eat and grow - I imagine that wild BPs grow much more slowly than captive animals although I admit I have no eveidence for this - does anyone?. Adult BPs don't have the same feed requirements and regular overfeeding can easily send them into an infuriating fast as I experienced when I fed Monty on too large small rats for a while.

I find sizing feeds quite frustrating acutally due to the variability of what terms such as 'small' and 'weaner' mean in practice. I buy throzen rats online and the variation is considerable - one batch of small rats approaches 'weaners' others are much larger (too large for me) and some weaners are so small they approach fuzzies. The ideal 'large weaner/small small rat' is often elusive. There is only one local supplier but their stock is enormously variable in availability and I have no idea of it's quality. I have never weighed my rats but I shall do so later - Monty is over 2 years old now and getting on for 1.5kg.