Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I got my JCP a year ago (8/23/03) at a little more than a week old and he/she is approx. 3'3" long, is this normal growth rate?

Also, my local reptile store only carries pinkies and fuzzies, then jumps to adults (mice). So the fuzzies started to get too small so I decided to give breeding my own mice a try (that didn't work out too well), since I don't really want to order bulk quantities of rodents off the internet and have my snake outgrow that size and have the other rodents go to waste (seeing as this is my only snake at the time). So I guess my question is this, if I just feed fuzzies in larger numbers untill he/she is able to take adults is that healthy? Or if someone could give me a link to a website that sells frozen rodents in smaller quantities I guess that would be even better.

Any replies are greatly appreciated

Thank You
-Eric-

My first suggestion would be trying to switch to rat pups. If your local shop does not have them I would suggest buying them online. The only problem I see with feeding mice is the fact that many people wind up having problems switching to rats at a later age and feeding an adult carpet mice will prove to be more pricey. I think you would be surprised at the size of food item your 3' python can eat. My yearlings are just under 4' and feeding like mad on f/t small/med rats. Please post pics of your jungle we would love to see it.

large hoppers/small weanlings to him/her that I had left over frozen when I gave breeding mice a try but, I only have a couple left and breeding/keeping mice wasn't too great (I say that lightly), besides the breeding mice escaped and my dog killed them and I'm not going to start up breeding them again.

Sorry for the confusing story and poor wording of my previous post, I could definately see how you got mislead (my mistake).
Thank you for your replies

Oh yeah one more question, if I switch him/her over to rats now what size would he/she take? And about how long should he/she stay on that size (about how many rats)?

Thank you again, I appreciate it, and so does Blue, heres a hatchling pic of him/her on a spray bottle

-Eric-

My JCP was about the same size when I bought her. She was eating adult mice. I didn't think she could get them down but she did. Sounds like yours should be eating adult mice now. It's amazing the size of food item they can eat. As soon as yours is big enough to take to small rats switch. You will be happier in the long run.
I've had 'Safari' for almost a year and she has zoomed in size since she has been on rats. Some won't take to rats, however, so trying to feed a 6-8 foot snake several mice would get expensive. I was fortunate that Safari took to rats on the first try.
As soon as mine sheds, any day now, I'm going to mesure her. I think she is pushing 5 1/2-6 foot.

I'll try to upload some new photos soon, for now heres some old crappy ones
-Eric-

again, sorry for the crappy pics

he's quite a bit bigger now, like I said I'll post some new ones

last pic for now, untill I get some new, updated, and hopefully less crappy ones