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This is a copy of an e-mail I sent today from a guy I bought a female ball from:

I received the snake today and she's in good condition. There's one problem though. She weight 1728g. When I e-mailed you on 4/28 you told me as of the prior Monday she was 2378g and that after she layed her clutch she was 1850g (4/10). I don't see her loosing 650g in that amount of time considering she should only be feeding on rats between 175g-225g for her size. I especially don't see her loosing this much weight if she was 1850g after laying and has eaten "6 plus" times since then. I definitely don't see her normally being a 3000g snake considering she's 1400g less than that now and isn't shinny or anything. I have a female ball that's 56", her normal weight is about 2500g. This snake is 53" I don't see her being 3" shorter and weighing 600g more... I have a local that I usually by my breeder females from and I pay $200 for females that are 2000-2500g. Including shipping I just paid about $300 for one that's now 1728. I could see her maybe being 2300 or so, but not 3000 . I would not have bought her if I knew the was this much less than what I expected. I expected to at least get a 2300g. I'm happy with the snake, just not her weight... I'm not going try to slander your name or anything, just concerned about the weight differences. Please e-mail me back.
thanks,
Matt

Here's a copy of the e-mail I recieved from him on 4/28:
She layed 4/10 she is 2378gram as of Monday and has eaten 6 plus time since laying. She was 1850 grams after laying. She normally weights 3000 easy

Thanks in advace everyone. I won't be posting this persons name as this isn't an attemt to hurt their reputation just to get some opinions. The snake in the pic isn't the one I got today.

I haven't done much (intentional) breeding, so I can't comment on the weight after laying vs. normal weight, but I can make a few comments.

1) You should go back and recheck your math, you're off by 100g to start with.
2) I hope you don't really think an 1800g snake gained 400g in two weeks. The post-lay weight sounds like what you should be dealing with. The only way it weighed 400g more two seeks later was with a full stomach, which means it may very well have passed before you got it. That probably means that the 3000g weight he mentioned is with a full stomach also.
3) I would probably agree with the size of rats you suggest she should be eating, but if he was trying to put some wight on her, she could easily eat 2 at a time.
4) Check your scale and ask him to check his.
5) The comment about not thinking a 53" snake could weight more than a 56" snake makes no sense to me. A python's weight can vary DRASTICALLY depending on how well it is fed, like one individual weighing 2-3 times as much as another of the same length. (I don't have a good feel for whether 3000g sound too high for a 53" ball though.)

If I missed something, let me know...
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

Oops. I, of course, am the the math challenged party, so strike #1.
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

I got a difference of 650g by subtracting the weight she was when I recieved her from the weight that I was told she weighed. Where'd you get 400g from. He said she was 1850g after laying but was 1730g when I got her, this was supposedly to have eaten 6 med rats after laying less then a month ago on 4/10. What I dont see is how a 1850g snake can eat 6 med rats between 4/10 and 5/1 and weigh 1730g by 5/5. What I was comparing was the normal weight of a 4.5' snake being about 2500g. It's impossible for a snake to be 2-3x bigger like you said. That'd be like having a 4.5' ball that's 9000g (20lbs).

>>I got a difference of 650g by subtracting the weight she was when I recieved her from the weight that I was told she weighed.

Thus my, possibly too obtuse, last post. You were correct about the 650g difference. I spazzed out for a second.

> Where'd you get 400g from.

A combination of estimation and sleep depravation, but there I was talking about the the difference between what he said she weighed afer laying and what he said she weighed 13 days later. The actual difference was 528g which might be how I confused myself above.

>> He said she was 1850g after laying but was 1730g when I got her, this was supposedly to have eaten 6 med rats after laying less then a month ago on 4/10. What I dont see is how a 1850g snake can eat 6 med rats between 4/10 and 5/1 and weigh 1730g by 5/5.

I think you are probably right about that, but it could easily eat 6 rats and weight exaclty the same a month later. I don't think you could resonably expect it to gain more than a few tens of grams of real weight in a month. From 1850g to 2378g in 13 days is clearly almost entirely food in the snake's digestive system, most of which will pass soon, especially if he didn't feed again after that...which I assume most people would not do right before shiiping. His message from 4/28 says she weighed 2378g "as of Monday", which would have been 4/23, unless I am still off in space, so that's been almost 2 weeks. Could she pass all that in 2 weeks? I don't know... On the other hand, he claims to have fed her 6 times in 18 days or less...

For it to go DOWN from 1850g to 1730g sounds unlikely, unless they retain fluid for some time after laying, which passes later. I don't know if that is the case, which is why I pointed out that I was not a breeder.

>What I was comparing was the normal weight of a 4.5' snake being about 2500g. It's impossible for a snake to be 2-3x bigger like you said. That'd be like having a 4.5' ball that's 9000g (20lbs).

What I said was that there could be a 2-3 times difference between two individuals, not that one could weigh 2-3 times more than yours. I'm faily sure that a very skinny 4.5' ball could weigh as little as 1500g or less and I highly suspect that a very fat one could weigh 3500g or more. Neither would be very healthy...
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

Thanks for the feedback and clarification.