Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a baby borneo and a baby black sumatran and would like to know if 1 mouse a week is enough? Well i know its enough but what i'm asking is will my snakes get to a large size at 1 mouse a week..........Joe

Initially mice of appropriate size are fine, but as it grows you will need to increase the next size. I tend to feed mine STP's every two-three weeks, one large prey item. Until pre-breeding conditioning, at which time, I step up the feeding to weekly for about two months.

They could take more, but I prefer not to powerfeed them as they tend to get lazy and do not breed as well. The hatchlings start out on larger prey items than say a ball python. Anything smaller they tend to ignore or not show as much interest.

For a hatchling a mouse is fine, but after a few months, if not quicker, you will want to graduate to small rats. Hatchlings should eat every week or so, their quickest growing happens in the first year and a half or so.
After a year and a half, i slowed mine to every 10 days.... now at 3 she is eating every 2-3 weeks, depending on the size of the prey item.
The good way to tell the size of the prey item is to look at the middle of the snake, it's girth, and as long as the prey item is as big as the animal's girth, the snake should be able to eat it... it should be appropriate to size. Anything much smaller than the girth would be too little, anything much bigger would be too much.
I have a 9 month old on small rats, I was feeding her every 5 days but she is getting too fat... so I switched her to every 7-10 days now. You should play it by ear.
Try a mouse every 5-7 days, if he's still hungry, try a samll rat every 5-7 days. If he gets too fat try a small rat every 7-10 days.
Another thing, bloods tend to like rats better than they do mice. If your blood isn't too eager on mice... try a rat and almost guaranteed he will be an eager feeder.