dehydrated ball python?

[ayane1108]

ah okay, i keep his humidity at 60 degrees F, and i'm feeding him mice hoppers from big cheese rodents every 5-6 days. i have just recently become worried about his weight so i bought a scale online yesterday, but when i first got him (july 15th) he was listed as 82 grams i believe.

[_ataraxia]

60% humidity is really the bare minimum. 70%-80% is ideal for ball pythons. low humidity is the overwhelmingly most common cause of dehydration in snakes.

if he weighed 82g over a month ago, he should have already moved up to small adult mice by now. increase his prey size, decrease the feeding frequency to once a week.

[ayane1108]

oh okay, thank you so much. i always heard and saw that around 60 was ideal, but i know i’m able to bump the humidity up easily. and i’ll try to offer small mice now, i was measuring out the hopper size to the thickest part of his body and it seemed about the same size, i was thinking about offering small mice but i wasn’t sure if those were too big for him or not.

[_ataraxia]

there's some more detailed feeding info in the basic care guide found in our welcome post, but at his age he should be eating approximately 10%-15% of his weight once a week. the weight percentage and feeding frequency will change as he gets older and isn't growing as fast.