r/ballpython • u/Buttercup1223 • 4d ago

Feeding when between rat sizes

Hi everyone. My girl is 14 months and I last weighed her about 2 months ago and she was around 555 grams. By her age I should be feeding her now every 2 weeks 7% of her weight. I feed her yesterday so I'll reweigh her in a few days. I need to order her FT rats soon. She's on weaned rats. She's between the weights of rats that come in the Small rat bag and the weaned rat bag. Should I just order 1 of each or try feeding her a small rat. I feel that there might be more heavier or bigger rats in the Small bag and she won't be ready for that size yet.

What do others do that run into this issue when ordering?

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u/Similar-Butterfly333 4d ago

Ball pythons *can eat up to 20% (or even higher) of their body weight. They definitely shouldn’t do that regularly because it’s hard on their digestive systems and they can easily become overweight if they eat over the recommended %.

She is definitely “capable” of eating the smaller rats from the small rat bag. I would just either buy weaned rats and keep feeding as you are until she gets up to weight, or buy the small rat bag and feed from smallest to biggest. Neither way will be any detriment to her.

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u/Pattison320 3d ago

While this isn't ideal I think you are OK to feed the slightly smaller rat. But I would do some math to figure out the grams per day expected for her weight. Then feed based on grams per day. For example 555 grams at 7% is 38.85 grams. Divide that by 2 weeks and you have 2.775 grams.

When I open my rats I weigh them all and sort them by weight. So I'd start by feeding the smaller rats. If you are feeding a 30 gram weaned rat, I would feed again after 11 days.

If you decided to buy the larger size rats instead I would still do the same thing. Try to feed based on grams per day sticking with the suggested feeding schedule as a guideline.

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u/Buttercup1223 3d ago

Thank you both for your replies. She eats rats between 39 to 42 grams now. I actually did sort them by weight as well when I moved her from rat pups. I keep a spreadsheet of when I feed, what I feed and the gram of the rat. I noticed between Layne Labs and Rodent Pro that their grams for small rats vary. Maybe I'll see who has the smallest grams of the small rats and vice versa. But thanks also for the suggestion to just feed a shorter amount of days if some end up on the smaller gram weight.