Hi I posted recently and as a new snake owner I feel terrible cause I can’t seem to get accurate feeding info for my ball python Coco she’s between 16 and 18 inches and about 6 to 8 moths (I think) but she’s only 120/140 grams. Is she ok or underweight?
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She might be a tad small but every snake is different and will grow at different speeds. As far as feeding schedule, I would recommend trying to feed once per week. The rat or mouse you use should be about as big around as the biggest part of your snake. You will know you gave the right size of prey if there is a slight bulge in the snake where the prey is. When you offer food does she eat it or is the a picky eater?
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Your snake is a perfectly healthy weight. You will likely get a lot of contradiction on that however, because 99% of this hobby have overweight animals and believe that that is the “norm”
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Your girl looks like she’s in good body condition. There’s natural variation in how quickly an individual snake grows, so I personally focus more on body condition than on length/weight measurements in relation to age.
Also, as @t_h_wyman said, many captive snakes are overweight if not obese, do it’s actually a good thing that she’s not as heavy and chonky as some.
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She’s a massive big back 
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Hello and welcome to the community! As you can probably tell, this community forum is a great place to get advice, search specific topics, show off your beautiful Coco, and interact with other reptile lovers/owners/breeders!
I also concur that your girl doesn’t look underweight. When looking at your pictures of her, there is one pic where it looked like she may possibly need a little hydration. It’s probably just the angle of the photo and how the lighting is interacting though. I am far from a snake expert and I hope I don’t come off as being a jerk because I promise that’s never my intention in any of my posts. And I absolutely do think you’re doing a wonderful job with her. It was so kind of you to take her in since your friend couldn’t take her with them when they moved!
Please keep those photos coming, we love seeing photos of everyone’s beautiful creatures!
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Thank you!!! any advice to get her to drink I almost never see her by her bowl now that I think about it and it’s on the cool side too??
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Sometimes just a soak in 85 degree water will help rehydrate her. She could be in a plastic tub with a secure lid. Just make sure it isn’t too deep. I try to put about halfway up her body so she is not fully submerged. It’s possible that maybe she just drinks mostly at night or something. I think as far as the water bowl goes, if your humidity is within the recommended range then the water bowl should be good where it is.
I’d say just give a quick check of humidity, ambient temp, cool side temp and warm side just in case, so you can rule out husbandry issues if she actually isn’t drinking water. I did a quick search here on the forum and didn’t find much about tips for getting snakes to drink. I did see one post mentioning that some people’s snakes come out to drink if they hear the water being poured into their water bowl.
If you have any other questions or updates on her, feel free to ask or post. There are lots of experienced and knowledgeable folks here on the forum, and no question is too dumb (I lurked on here for a long time but didn’t ask questions for fear they sounded dumb but I was wrong lol). We’re here because we all want what’s best for our creatures 
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