This is Pesto. I’ve been feeding her weaned rats recently once a week but in the past month or so I have noticed she looks a little too thick, especially when coiled. Is she overweight or getting there? Should I start feeding her smaller prey or same sized prey at sightly longer intervals?
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How old is she? Very pretty animal. I only have one Ball Python and its a male so can’t really tell if that gal’s overweight especially without her age. We have quite a few BP peeps that I know will help you.
Hey,
From the pictures I would say that she looks like she is growing well. Podgy but nothing to be extremely worried over. A picture of the tail and neck area would make it easier to confirm though.
I would recommend dropping your feeding down by a few days if you are worried.
So rather than once a week, go for once every 10 days or even once a fortnight until you see positive changes.
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What would you look for with the tail and neck as indicators to whether a BP is overweight? Just curious to know what to look for. I have a few in my collection that seem to be gaining quickly recently because I found a new supplier for rodents and seems to be a much better quality rodent that eats better quality food. I want them to grow as I have future plans to breed but I want it to be healthy growth as well
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I want to say she was hatched in July, so around 9 months? She’s gonna be a big girl.
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Unless you’re bulking up a female for breeding, you really shouldn’t feel or see fat on the exterior under the skin. Snakes tend to store fat first around their internal organs before it shows on the outside. If you’re keeping a them as a pet, having them on the lean side is much healthier long term. It’s baffling to me that so many people feed their full grown pythons every week, it never gives their system a chance to rest. When they’re growing it’s a different story, but it’s still healthy to give them a break.
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That’s what I was thinking, to spread out her feeding only slightly since she is still growing or feeding her slightly smaller rats. I just want her to be healthy and not overweight.
There is far less room for a tail to become obese, which leads to a sort of witches finger looking tail end…
On this chart the animal above looks in the “overweight” region.
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Given this chart, I try to have my snakes somewhere between “ideal” and “overweight” — but I’m also breeding them so it’s a bit different.
I think my only girl that’s a bit too chonky is Lucy 
she’s just prone to putting more fat on compared to my other snakes. I don’t feed her any more often than the others! As of her last weigh she was at 1600 grams.
Probably gonna have to space out her feedings a bit more.
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She’s absolutely beautiful! I feed Pesto weaned rats every week since she’s still young and growing but I’m definitely gonna have to start spacing them out apparently because she tends to get pudgy.
Oh yeah, I’d say she needs a diet. Perhaps semi frequent feedings but much smaller so her metabolism is raised but is taking in less calories. They’re quite good at conserving energy between derths of food and their digestive system is on standby. People forget that these animals in our care are in an extremely low stress environment, and stress burns fat.
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Explains why I can never put on any weight haha. I plan on bulking her up when she’s full grown for breeding but definitely does not need it now. Thankfully my new BP is eating smaller food so I can also use them for her.
Yeah, she’s currently being fed small rats weekly due to me wanting to put more fat on her for egg laying, but she decided not to go and instead just got fat. So I’ll be downsizing her to weans until next season. Hopefully she’ll slim down a bit but also keep putting on size.
She’s been a struggle to keep a healthy weight compared to my other ball pythons.
Always wants to eat, she actually never hit the “1000 gram wall”
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Yeah, all of my snakes except for our bci girl are on a weekly diet, but the adult ball pythons get fed smaller meals than what they would normally be able to eat to help balance it out.
Example, my adult males and subadult females get fed weans weekly. Adult females usually get 1 small weekly, sometimes 2 (on different days of course) when we’re going into the breeding season.
Lucy I kept on 1 small a week because of her tendency to get fat, and I guess because she never started developing any follicles it went straight to her “hips”
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Did reducing the size of the meal but keeping it weekly help slim her down? One of my girls looks like yours in the pic and I was going to size down and feed every other week to slim her down. All my girls eat weekly and she is the only one that packed it in her “hips” while the others look at the ideal stage.
She’s definitely looking a little better than before, though I’ve upped feeding again as now I’m pairing her. She needs the fat if she’s gonna give me eggs 
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Thanks. Out of the five 2020 girls I have, she is the only one that looks a little chunky. They are all around the same weight of just under 1200g.
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