feeding size question

After watching some videos I see I gave my ball a rat too big. Can someone tell me in grams what a rat should weight to feed 400 gram balls please

It's not a weight thing, for the most part. The consensus is usually to only feed rodents as big as the snake is around. If the rodent is wider/larger than the widest part of the snake, then it's too big.

10-15% of the body weight of the snake. So 40-60 grams is an average size rat to feed that BP. This is not an exact rule though, anything close to that is fine

That has confused me though, do you stretch out the rat to see its sbhize ?

Originally Posted by karlsboa

That has confused me though, do you stretch out the rat to see its sbhize ?

You don't have to get that exact with it (stretching the rat). At 400 grams, I would feed weans (rats that have just been weaned from Mom, to start feeding on their own). Not too long ago, I would have been pushing a 350-400 gram snake onto small rats, but that practice seemed to cause them to quit eating after a while. I was getting my babies up to 500-600 grams quickly, but not much bigger by 12 months old.

We go by a combination of the 10-15% weight rule as well as the width rule. We feed f/t though, so it's fairly easy since we have diff size rodents in labeled bags.

This is just how I do things:

I feed a 30-50g rat to the 300-500 range depending on the "fat" of the snake. A short chunky 400g snake might get a 25-30g rat but a long average sized 400g BP might get a 40-50g. If you wanna play it safe, smaller is better to some extent.

My high dollar ones get smaller meals because I would rather not chance it. (10% every 7 days)
Males get smaller meals because I like to pace them as better breeders. (10% every 7-14 days)
Adult females get larger meals but a little less frequently. (15%+ every 7-14 days)
Growing females, with a healthy hunger, get larger meals (closer to 15%). (every 5-7 days depending on shed cycle)
Bad feeders get small meals (5-10%) until they are back on. (No set schedule)
Breeding females get smaller and smaller meals throughout the breeding season. (No set schedule)
Breeding males get offered a small meal after separation and on break. (No set schedule)

I like to feed smaller most of the time because I feed frequently. The only time I get worried about feeding to much or to large is when I get bad feeders back on because I'm trying to make up for lost weight, but other than that, on my schedule, I have no worries.