It’s definitely an important and interesting conversation to have, because I was shocking when I started shopping around on MM and saw lots of '19 babies weighing in at around 190 grams. Granted there’s most likely a spectrum of ages, because some may have been born in April and others not until August, but that still seems awfully small to me. I never assumed it was intentional thought.
All of the balls I’ve ever bought before have been from small local breeders and have been 300+ grams by a year of age. While I’m not certain that fast growth = best growth, especially given the amount of overweight ball pythons you see, it is a little disconcerting sometimes to see such a large discrepancy. Personally I’m hesitant to buy anything super small because I worry about the added stress of shipping and getting them settled into a new environment and food source. It seems like it takes a bit to get little ones on a regular feeding schedule and I’d hate for an already small baby to go on a hunger strike
Yes. I hate when the weights arent listed in the ad. I no longer buy if they arent listed as I had bought a male once and he came to me at 98 grams, he went on a hard feed strike for a minute when I got him and It was the worst experience. He has since never recused a meal but is considerably smaller than the other snakes I have.
Some breeders will feed their non-holdback snakes in the most cost effective manner that they can personally justify.
A certain big breeder on morph market comes to mind, he has numerous 2018 ball python babies around the 300gram mark, he has recently removed the hatch year from all of his advertisements.
These snakes are likely still healthy; however, I would never consider purchasing a 2 y/o 300 gram ball python.
1 year and 300 grams though? In my opinion it’s not optimum; however, still acceptable.
I don’t really understand maintenance to that degree, yes, it saves you some time and money in feeding them but once they are 2+ years old, the main attraction to your buyers is a much closer to mature animal, either because it saves them a lot of time on getting it close to breeding or because they want a healthy, well established bigger snake as a pet, and people typically will pay more for that. If your 2 year old is not significantly bigger than a 6 month old though, there isn’t really any benefit to buying from you, rather than the many more babies to choose from, that are cheaper and no reason to spend more on the older but not significantly different animal you are offering. At that point, it’s not a financial benefit to maintenance feed, rather the opposite.
Sadly, a small minority of breeders don’t share your opinions, they care more about their feeding expenses.
I personally would be feeding my hatchlings as if I’m planning on breeding them… if they don’t sell right away, that’s fine because they’ll get bigger and be worth more money down the road.
But I can see why someone more focused on the “business” aspect would want to feed their hatchlings as little as possible, even if that means maintenance feeding them for a long period of time.
The idea does bother me quite a bit, because at that point it comes across as the breeder being more worried about their profit over the snake being healthy and growing normally. Not to say these snakes are unhealthy of course, but… yikes.
@trnreptiles being business minded is a great thing. Everyone should be doing it.
But doing GOOD business and having high quality of work is part of doing business. I definitely don’t see them as being exclusive.
I know what you mean is just someone that is thinking shortsightedly of the nickels they save on food but sometimes I see people in the hobby treat the money side of “business” like a dirty word. It’s definitely not, it’s an essential part of your planning and operation but so is building a business and business practices you can be proud of.
That is not always true. a normal male is not going to be worth more at 300g vs 600g. There is alot more to it. Yes certain genes and sexes will gain value the larger they are, but not all.
Always recheck with breeder that the weight listed is the correct and current weight. Not everyone has the time to weigh 200 plus snakes they have listed and update every few weeks. I know i didn’t. 
What would be considered optimum weight? Again i feel it necessary to say that not all animals no matter what the feeding schedule will always put on the weight you feel they should. Each animal is different and will grow and gain weight differently. Body condition should always be taken into consideration, numbers on the scale don’t always tell the whole truth.
That’s very fair and a valid point, I’m sure many of the bigger breeders and probably some of the small ones don’t regularly update the weights on their listing, and is probably a contributing factor in weights seeming lower than they actually are
Yeah, I often forget to list weights but if you contact me and ask for one on any, I’m happy to get one right then that is up to date and accurate, will even take a pic of it requested.
It was a general statement, not that I was saying it applied to every snake. But I get what you mean.
Oh yeah, I’m not saying focusing on the money side of things is bad, not at all. You should be making good financial decisions with anything you consider a business.
I personally just wouldn’t go that far with my animals, I’d rather feed them and let them grow than to try and save a few bucks here and there with feeders. Especially since I breed my own feeders and try not to rely on buying them elsewhere!
Well personally, I would not take a really big consideration about the weight of the snake on morphmarket. Since it could just be the fact that it has not been updated recently…
So just talk to the breeder before purchasing it in order to know the real weight.
Thx
Very true! Definitely one of the first questions to ask when you message someone about a listing.
I would consider 500+ to be an optimum weight for a yearling, and in my opinion an optimum breeders yearlings would vary drastically from snake to snake ranging from 300-1,000+ grams.
I would not personally consider buying snakes from a breeder who’s 1-2+ year old snakes all hover around the 300 gram mark.
I know this thread is old, but after reading everything, this makes Me wonder about my snake. I bought her off MM back on March 3. At the time that she arrived she (according to the breeder) was 6 months old (born September 1, 2021) and she only weighed 98 grams. Now perspective, she was not a picky eater, she had never refused a meal, and was eating live rats prior to me getting her. When I got her she ate the very next day, has had a ferocious appetite and feeding response, has never refused a meal, and now at just shy of 11 months old, she weighs 685 grams. From the time I got her I was feeding her religiously every 7 days with prey items at 15% of her body weight. As she has gotten significantly bigger, once she hit 500 grams, I started spanning her feeding days out to every 10 days. And despite her growing size I her prey items stay right at between 50-60 gram small rats.
So honestly for a snake that has always had such a strong feeding response, it honestly has yet to make sense to me why she arrived to me weighing only 98 grams. Especially since in just the 5 months that I have had her she now weighs 685. Seems odd to me. Especially because the breeder did tell me that she had been feeding her 20% of her body weight every 7 days since she was born. So I just don’t understand how that makes sense I guess.