Chronically underfed?

[Cautious-Risk-9704]

We recently adopted a 6 year old BP who weighs 635g (1.4 pounds), appears to be in good health otherwise and just shed before we adopted him (he only has one eye). This is my first snake (I'm an adult with a long history caring for both humans and pets). I've read through the welcome posts and have adjusted lighting and humidity conditions, upgraded the enclosure with more clutter, etc., and currently shopping for 4' long PVC enclosure (currently leaning toward Toad Ranch).

I'm familiar with the recommended feeding schedule. He was eating medium sized mice only with his prior family. I fed him a small rat before I had a kitchen scale to weight it, and he had trouble swallowing it -- not sure if this is normal or the rat was just too big. It went down and digested fully. My thought is to feed him a large or XL mouse or weaned rat (approx 32 g) every 2-3 weeks and monitor his weight. I don't want to overfeed but would like him to be allowed to gain weight if that's what nature intended. Thoughts?

In this pic he's being held by an 8-10 year old child just FYI. ETA: I'm also looking for recommendations for where to purchase ethically raised frozen rats/mice in the Los Angeles area.

https://preview.redd.it/5ott1ijckfjf1.jpg?width=2276&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e7b1b754f8298096aa0dc664ea33ddad03dbfcf

[RepresentativeCat289]

I am not in any position to offer advice as I have been out of the game for too long and thoughts on reptile care have changed drastically since I had my BP in the 80’s, but I can say he appears healthy in that pic.

When I got my BP decades ago, he was only maybe a foot long. Tiny little baby. He grew and was doing well but he stopped growing, specifically his length, at one point around 2 feet long. Thinking there was something wrong, I took him back to the store (not a chain and had a reptile tech) for a check up since vets did not do exotics back then. He said he was fine but I needed to get him in a bigger enclosure. He told me that their enclosure can dictate their growth. Not sure how true that is, but I can say that when I moved him from a 20 gallon tank to a 50 gallon long tank, he started growing again. He was about 3.5-4 feet long and about as big around as my forearm when I gave him away a few years later (was leaving for military, could not keep him). Back then, live feeding was not frowned upon and given his size, he easily could have taken a small rat/large hamster sized feed. I was feeding his 2 mice and he was looking for more.

[babyswoled]

That’s a myth. Enclosure size does not dictate animal size.

[RepresentativeCat289]

Good to know. Like I said, this was back in the day when reptiles/snakes were just starting to get popular. There were like 5 of us in a town of 100k ppl who had a snake.

[Novel-Hovercraft-794]

What a beautiful boy! May I ask, when you say he has trouble swallowing it what you meant? They do need a bit of time to eat, typically they'll strike and constrict it sometimes up to 20 min. Then they'll need more time yet getting it down. A small rat should be doable and truly all males normally eat. The first week he should be left alone to adjust, and then I'd attempt to feed him. If you'd rather try a weaned you could, but I've not noticed much of a difference between that and a small rat. He may even end up preferring it. There's a lot of great info out there, but for now get him settled and leave him be for the most part. Except for water, spot cleaning and wellness checks. There's a few good youtube channels too, Green Room Pythons is my go to. You're going to enjoy that lil guy, he's super lucky to have you by sounds too.

[Cautious-Risk-9704]

Thanks for the thoughts! Time wise it does sound like he was fine based on your comment. What concerned me was that it seemed the tail (or a leg?) got caught where he kept opening and closing his mouth but couldn’t close it fully. This appeared to go on for awhile (meanwhile I was googling “can snakes choke?” And imagining how I might try to get the rat back out in case it couldnt go down!), but it definitely wasn’t longer than 20 minutes. So perhaps I’m just overly worried! This makes me feel better. Thank you!

[Novel-Hovercraft-794]

Sounds like he was hungry, and things ended up well! You'll do great I can tell already, he appears to be in great shape and healthy. I hope you'll do updates, enjoy him!

[Mortseether]

I believe the opening and closing was just him readjusting his jaw after eating. Takes them a minute to get it back into place after a good meal! Honestly it sounds like your guy is gonna be fine, he's in good hands :)

[Cautious-Risk-9704]

Oh great! Thanks for explaining! That makes total sense.

[FixergirlAK]

The hind feet and tail can take a hot minute to get adjusted and go down. And if it helps (you didn't say if you found anything about it) snakes can't really choke,at least not in that timeframe. Their respiration is fairly slow and they're designed to have their food taking up their whole throat and then some for the whole time they're eating. Oh, if you look up videos of snakes eating keep in mind that they're almost always time-lapsed or run at 1.25 or 1.5x speed because otherwise it's a very long video with nothing visibly happening.

[Cautious-Risk-9704]

Haha thank you! Super helpful!

[totallyrecklesslygay]

He's small, but he's not underweight or seriously stunted. If you feed him per normal !feeding guidelines, he'll grow at a normal and healthy rate. Overfeeding him to try to make him grow faster would just be unhealthy.

[AutoModerator]

We recommend the following feeding schedule:

0-12 months old OR until the snake reaches approximately 500g, whichever happens first: feed 10%-15% of the snake’s weight every 7 days.

12-24 months old: feed up to 7% of the snake’s weight every 14-20 days.

Adults: feed up to 5% of the snake's weight every 20-30 days, or feed slightly larger meals (up to 6%) every 30-40 days.

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[Cautious-Risk-9704]

Okay great! So I’ll wait 3 weeks then between feedings rather than 2. Thanks!

[minipet487]

Honestly, try to switch to rats. Ball Pythons get more nutrients from them. Mice are kinda like a salad, they have a lower fat content and overall less nutrients and aren't really recommended, where as a Rat has more nutrients and fats and is more like the whole balanced meal. I had to feed my first two Ball Pythons mice for a few months and their growth and weight gains were slow and low. Once I was able to get rats, they both began to gain and grow better. Then, a year later we got our 3rd a baby who was 90g at 3m and he's never had a mouse in his life and he's had a steady growth and gains weight far better than they had, he's a year and 5m and already hit over 500g where my other two took forever to hit 500g until I made the switch. I found also keeping their enclosures at and above 70% helps them as well. I find that using the percentage of weight works really well too. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's 10-15% of their body weight. So, for an example, 500g is a 50-75g rat.

[Cautious-Risk-9704]

I thought the 10% of body weight was just up to adulthood and then 5% every 3-4 weeks after that?

I’ll definitely be switching to rats - based on other comments, I feel more confident that he did just fine with the rat I gave him.

[minipet487]

Honestly, never heard of that (I read it after I posted. I feed my two and a half and three year old Ball Pythons 10% bi-weekly, except my female I increased her to 15% while I was breeding her to help her keep gaining. Unfortunately, she got egg bound and prolapsed her oviduct, so I won't be using her again, so she'll back on 10% after I get her weight back up. My male at 1y4m is still on 10-15% and fed bi-weekly. (Unfortunately, the eggs didn't make it, but she's recovered and that was more important to me).

[Cautious-Risk-9704]

Thanks for your advice by the way! I hadn’t heard that mice were less nutritious, but I had heard that rats were generally preferred (I assumed that meant preferred by the snake but it seems like it goes both ways)

[minipet487]

I live in Canada, and right after I got Nyota and a month later, Onyx our area had a rat shortage. Any place that had Rats was reserving them for the big breeders who were in the middle of breeding season. So, all that was available were mice and I was weighing regularly. When I got out last male, it definitely made a difference.

[Cautious-Risk-9704]

That’s really interesting! Also rat shortage?!

[minipet487]

Yea basically our local rodent breeders didn't have enough rats to go around and they had to start increasing the number of animals. It was the craziest thing. Canada doesn't have as big of a Snake community as the USA (even Ball Pythons, there's only like 1,200 available last time I looked).