Quote Originally Posted by frankykeno View Post
The digital scale is just really to keep a close eye on weight gains. You want a nice steady weight gain especially as babies and one of the first things you'll be asked if you ask a question about feeding frequency or size of prey is "how big is your snake". Since length doesn't mean all that much, weight is a vital thing to know. No need to buy a hugely expensive digital scale, department stores or office supply stores often have nice scales (either kitchen or postal) for $30 or less. If you run a search here on digital scales you'll likely come up with loads of threads.

The other way of determining proper prey size for ball pythons is to compare the largest girth of the prey (on rodents that's the butt/hip area to the largest empty girth of your snake). A lot of us go with equal to or slightly less than girth so that when the snake eats it does not have a distended feeding bump. Others feed other ways, using other standards. As far as using weights - I generally go every 5 days until they hit about 150 to 200 grams, then every 7 after that weight is achieved.

My kids are much the same LOL. They think it's perfectly normal to have snakes all over the place. Whenever a new friend comes to play with my youngest whose 6, and they get all googley eyed over the snakes, young Michael tends to sigh, roll his eyes, shrug and mumble..."they are JUST snakes...geeze!".
Excellent, informative and helpful post
I can't give you another rep point but I can give you kudos.

Sounds like you temps are fine, they can go as high as 94 and you will be fine.

My thought is that you might be handling her a little bit too much and she is getting egdy. I have had some babies that just ball up, some run for the hills and some strike. The reality is they are all usually signs of stress, although striking could just be great feeding response too. Either way any new snake needs time to settle in and settle down, then get used to handling. This is a great place to learn from others experience and find out what makes those lil buggers tick. Welcome aboard