Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a few questions about feeding. What I have is 3 f Albino hets under 150g feeding on large mice right now. 1 f pastel, 1 m spider, and 1 m albino in between 150 and 200g feeding on rat pups. And 1 f pinstripe at 875g feeding on weaned rats. All of them get fed every seven days. My concerns are I'm afraid I might be feeding too small of meals. The small ones look like they could go up to rat pups, the medium ones look like they could go up to weaned rats, and the pinstripe looks like she could almost go up to a small to medium sized rat. I'm not concerned with power feeding at all, but it would be nice to get the pinstripe up to breeding weight next year. And more importantly than packing on weight I'm super paranoid about feeding them a rodent that's too large for them to swallow. I'd like to hear some opinions on how I'm doing and any suggestions. Also hypothetically speaking. If time is of no importance if you fed a snake 1 large mouse once a week would it eventually get to breeding weight or do you absolutely have to pack an animal with food to get it to needing weight?

I base it on the size of the snake, rule of thumb is to feed them a rodent no larger than the snakes largest girth. If you want them to put on weight then rats are the way to go, almost all of my hatchling ball pythons can start on rat pinks so bumping the babies up to rat pups shouldn't be an issue. And as for feeding to get to size you need to feed appropriately sized rodents as the snake grows for it to keep putting on size and stay healthy.
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0.3 double het pied/carmel 1.3.2 normals, 1.3.1 pastels, 0.1 mojave, 0.1 pinstripe, 0.1 albino, 1.0 yellow belly, 1.1 het pied, 1.0 amelanistic corn, 0.1 normal corn, 2.1 miniture dachshunds, 0.1 beautiful fiance
*snakes are like oreos, no one can just have one!*

Don't be afraid to feed them more than one food item at a time.

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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com