The place I go to for feeders didn’t have rat pups and a size down was too small for him, so I got him a small rat.
Now, I may just be stressing myself out because it’s around(a little smaller) the same size of the biggest part of his body(this is a very small rat) and is 1-3 grams(a range because the bag it was in was a little torn and the rat got soaked) heavier than 15% of his body weight. The rat is around 50-53g.
He got it down just fine, but I’m stressing out over it due to googling if I may have done wrong.
Should I be worried?
I understand I may have made a mistake, so please try not to be harsh. I’m just panicking right now and would like some thought into this. I will be monitoring him closely for the next few hours, as well.
I wouldn’t be worried, most of the percentage “rules” out there are just guidelines, and from what ive seen more so about keeping weight than what they can actually handle, as some recommend going all the way down to 5% when the snake is fully grown - as long as it wasn’t much larger than the midsection you should be good
If he doesn’t regurgitate it, you were completely fine. As people have said it’s basically just a guideline so that new keepers can get used to eyeballing proper feeding sizes. But that being said, he should be 100% fine and no need to worry about him.
If it got it down, then it will be ok. If it could not handled it, it would have stopped or brought it back up fairly quick.
As already slated the weight is just a guide.
Now don’t be surprised if it does not want to eat next feeding (if feeding weekly). This could happen, but it is nothing to worry about.
What is the age and size of your snake, and how often do you feed it?