First time ball python/snake owner. I bought my sweet boy Nagini 2 weeks ago. They said he was born April 1, 2025. I finally got my scale yesterday so i could weigh him and it says hes 125 grams. Its sounds like through my research on average he should be in the 150 gram area. Am I wrong? Also should I feed him adult sized mice? 15% of his weight is 18.75grams and that seems to be adult sized mice. Petco had me feed him one fuzzy mouse last week. I was paranoid it wasnt enough but a lot of information says you shouldn’t feed them more than 1 bc it can cause digestion problems and choking hazards. Any help and advice given would be so appreciated!
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Mass is a general framework to be familiar with and not an absolute target to hold exact. There is not appreciable difference between 125 and 150g (a long drink could account for a change that small)
A much better measure is the body condition of the animal. Research how their overall body condition should look - What does a too fat snake look like versus a too skinny snake versus a proper weight snake? Get a better understanding of that and you will be fine
Likewise, there is no real rule for mass/size of prey. Obviously you do not want to feed something too small for excessive periods of time (like only pinky mice for a year) but something a little smaller or larger on any given meal is not going to harm your animal. As an example, I have had babies from the same clutch that took anything from hoppers up to adult mice and all of them handled it fine
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