I purchased my ball python (my first) on October 15. At that time, no one told me what her feeding situation had been. I've since learned from the store manager who fed her that she ate a mouse hopper on October 12 or 13 and a pinkie of some kind on October 14. On October 21, six days after I brought her home, I fed her a rat pinkie. At the advice of someone at the pet store, I just put her in the paper bag in which I brought the pinkie home. At first, she seemed to ignore the pinkie, but she ate it after about fifteen minutes.
She's about thirteen to fifteen inches long. I've never stretched her out on a tape, but I get a rough idea from handling her. She's shown in the picture on this post. More pictures of her and her enclosure are in my gallery.
My concern is that she hasn't defecated. I've searched the cage by eyesight and by smell, and I'm getting no indication that she's gone.
The pet store manager said that sometimes soaking a snake in "finger warm" water will help the snake defecate. The manager suggested soaking my snake for about 20 to 30 minutes. I tried this trick on Monday night with my California Kingsnake, and it worked very well. I bought him on October 15 also, and he'd not gone either. I'll likely try it with my ball python soon, but I wondered whether other people liked or disliked the technique.
Monday was a bad day for my ball python. Twice I had to remove her from her cage and put her in a bag for an hour or two. The second time, I had to pull her from her log, and she seemed very stressed by the event. I haven't wanted to mess with her since that time so that she'd be able to relax for a day or so. If she's looking okay tomorrow, I'd like to try soaking her.
Bill
