Quick question, for feeding do you go off the thickest part of the body or 10-15% of body weight rule. For example I got a boy been eating every 5 days he’s probably 230g at 4momths old but he’s a thick boy. So would I keep doing rat pups at his body weight or go to weaned rats by size of his body?
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I definitely wouldn’t feed every 5 days, I’d space feedings out more and do 10-15% of his body weight (at this age). The problem with choosing prey based off the thickest part of their body is people are notoriously bad at eyeballing size and usually end up overfeeding, especially adults. I’ve seen way too may people feeding morbidly obese ball pythons larger prey than they need because “it’s the same size as the thickest part of their body” when the thickest part of their body is just too thick.
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I feed a bit varied, but for the bigger meals i go for 10-15%.
My boy is 900 something grams. Where i live there’s usually an option to buy frozen rats that are 90-150g, and he eats those no problem.
Not sure how big pups are since where i live they’re sold by weight and not by pup/small/medium etc, but I would just stick with the 10-15% rule.
Also, I agree that there’s no need to feed every 5 days. I usually recommend about once a week until they’re 1 year, then about every 2 weeks until they’re 2, about every 3 weeks until they’re 3, and then finally about once a month once they hit the three year mark.
If i feed a smaller meal like a chick then i might feed him again sooner, whereas if i feed him a larger meal, might wait an extra week.
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Makes sense. See I was doing 7 days and I seen a couple videos of breeders n stuff feeding like twice a week and all types of crazy ■■■■ lol excuse my language so I went down to 5 because they was talking about how they grow faster and can become the weight to breed.
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Okay this makes sense, ill cutback on the days. Like I was telling the other person the only reason I went to 5 is because I seen breeders on youtube feeding there snakes literally twice a week he had bp’s at a year old already 1000g and they looked healthy and he said as saying in wild ball Pythons will eat and eat until they don’t want to anymore and same with breeding like no snake is gonna say hey I’m a certain age or weight I can’t breed so it kinda made sense to me.
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If you want you can look at my reply to the guy below you I kinda explained what the video was talking about!!
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Just because you can powerfeed ball pythons to get them to breeding weight faster doesn’t mean that you should. The fact that they will happily eat themselves into obesity in captivity if allowed isn’t really a selling point for doing it. It makes sense in the wild that they would eat whenever given the opportunity because they will also be subjected to periods of time with no available food and have to be able to survive.
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I see what you saying. I appreciate the help! Also I he’s right at 188g at 15% that’s 28.2g should I move him up to weaned rats at about 30g or feed a pup again then switch?
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In the wild they will eat “all they can”, but “all they can” is usually only about 10 times a year.
Some breeders (and keepers unfortunately) will feed their snakes once a week their whole lives, but a fully grown adult kept as a pet absolutely does not need food more than once a month. Mine doesn’t even really show signs of hunger more often than that.
If yours is at 188g right now, i would wait a little before i moved him up. Based on a quick google search, weaned rats are usually 30-45g, so if you move him up once 15% of his weight is 30g, several of the rats might be too large for him still. I would wait until he’s around 300g, then 30-45g would be perfect, as 30g is 10% and 45g is 15% 
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