• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

What size rats do you feed your adult female balls? POLL

What size rats do you feed your adult female balls(approximate weight)

  • Small(40-70 grams)

    Votes: 24 42.1%

  • Medium(71-100 grams)

    Votes: 11 19.3%

  • Large(100-150 grams)

    Votes: 15 26.3%

  • Larger(150 grams+)

    Votes: 7 12.3%
  • Total voters
    57
Jake The Snake said:
I was told at an un named forum that it is basically in a conclusion unhealthy to feed your balls a rat anything bigger than 50-70 gram range.
Click to expand...
How naive. :rolleyes:

You should ask "the expert" how many ball pythons they keep...and more interestingly, how many they've bred.
 
Ive gotta agree with Doc nothing wrong with feeding small meals My friend larry feeds basically nothing but weanling and small rats year round and he feeds multiple prey items and he feeds often very often LOL he also raises his own feeders so it makes it economically infeasible to really feed anything bigger cause theres no point in feeding the food
 
I always went by the girth rule. Never had a problem. Quite a few of my girls couldn't eat a small due to the inability of being able to safely constrict it. Typically the info that we have available is often referred to as guidelines since not everyones setups are the same. Some happen to be able to provide the optimum , some may be just below optimum and have to adjust accordingly. Go with what ya know and what works best for ya.
 
Ahhhhh...I see. After reading further in the thread things became a lot more clear.

Jake,
Just do what you know to be right...based on the info that you've been given by people who have actually kept and bred more than a few of the animals in question (whether ball pythons or otherwise). People like Sammy, as this...
shrap said:
Folks, if there is one thing I have learned in over 25 years of keeping reptiles it is that there is not a single right way to do anything.

Any person that insists that there is only one right way of doing anything is the last person anyone should be listening to.
Click to expand...
...was good advice.
 
Dr Owens said:
How naive. :rolleyes:

You should ask "the expert" how many ball pythons they keep...and more interestingly, how many they've bred.
Click to expand...


Unfortunately Jake is a child and children sometimes don't comprehend everything they read. Nobody ever said unhealthy. What was said is that it is unnecessary to feed Ball Pythons large meals. They have a slow metabolism and have no need for large meals. Feeding overly large meals can lead to prolonged fasts. He maintains that many big breeders feed med/large rats every week. He was asked to name names and couldn't. I choose to feed small rats to even my biggest adults. I choose this because of the knowledge I have gained through my own experience and the experience of people that I trust. Jake (and anyone else) can do whatever they want with their animals. There are a lot of experts all over the place. A lot of people that have posted on this thread feed large, jumbos and even rabbits. Something I personally would never consider and find to be excessive. In the wild a Ball Python might eat 12 times a year. We overfeed already by feeding them every week of the year. For those looking to make some money as a breeder they have to,otherwise it would take 6 years to get an animal to breeding size.

Its a series of neverending arguments on every Internet forum.

Small prey or large?
Live or FT?
92-94 on the hot spot or no more than 86?

Do what you want, but if you post your opinion and it isn't backed up by anything except your personal feelings on the subject then expect to be taken to task.
 
Dr Owens said:
How naive. :rolleyes:

You should ask "the expert" how many ball pythons they keep...and more interestingly, how many they've bred.
Click to expand...


i will have to say that, i think that does not matter in some cases. In my case, for example. I have not bred, and don't keep many compared to some, but i know that there is no one way to go about it, and each individual animal is different. Species wise as well they are all very different too.

The breeder should know what that animal can handle, and whether it is a responsible choice to make or not. :)
 
Dr Owens said:
Ahhhhh...I see. After reading further in the thread things became a lot more clear.

Jake,
Just do what you know to be right...based on the info that you've been given by people who have actually kept and bred more than a few of the animals in question (whether ball pythons or otherwise). People like Sammy, as this...
...was good advice.
Click to expand...

It seems maybe you are making assumptions on what people do and don't know. Jake made some statements on the other thread that just don't make any sense. He was questioned about it by multiple people and decided to bring it here.

I have the utmost respect for Sammy (If only he had a male Pied instead of those 2 females!) and think he made a fine point.

Everyone should do whatever they want....
 
LOL this is too funny!



o what you want, but if you post your opinion and it isn't backed up by anything except your personal feelings on the subject then expect to be taken to task.
Click to expand...


In the wild a Ball Python might eat 12 times a year.
Click to expand...


Do a lot of field research in africa?? :rofl:
 
Gib said:
LOL this is too funny!









Do a lot of field research in africa?? :rofl:
Click to expand...

No, but others have. There is all kinds of field research that can be READ by almost anyone.

I never claimed to have done any field research, did I?
 
jglass38 said:
It seems maybe you are making assumptions on what people do and don't know. Jake made some statements on the other thread that just don't make any sense. He was questioned about it by multiple people and decided to bring it here.
Click to expand...
I assumed, huh? Well, since I haven't read the other thread, then feel free to enlighten me as to what he said there. However, nothing that he has posted here has been off based. However, your contentions are...and you are the one acting like a know-it-all.
 
Just seemed like your posting personal opinions without anything to really backit up...same thing your giving others grief for...


and as far as snakes in the wild...your probally right dead on about that,but Bps well really ALL snakes are opportunistic feeders in the wild,they get a meal whenever they can and also eat whatever they can...that one snake that might only eat 12 times a year Might very well take 5 of those meals in 5 straight days...and this i know FROM doing a lil field research...but that is neither here nor there cause we arent talking about animals that DONT have access to regular food we are talking about Captive pets...are you suggesting i should only feed my snake once a month and let it reach its maximum growth potential???

Another tidbit of fact for ya...basically the main reasons any ectothermic animal's metabolism slows is for lack of food(which puts the body into starvation mode which makes it burn very little energy adn store its food intake straight to fat,this one is true for all animals actually) and number 2 is by lowering of the core temperatures of said animal....now as for snakes fasting...thats a different subject all together no a healthy animal should ever fast unless its been stressed,in breeding mode or one of the 2 aforementiond tidbits on metabolism

HEALTHY is the keyword here
 
Dr Owens said:
I assumed, huh? Well, since I haven't read the other thread, then feel free to enlighten me as to what he said there. However, nothing that he has posted here has been off based. However, your contentions are.
Click to expand...

I'm not going to bother rehashing it. Feel free to read it there yourself. www.ball-pythons.net . Do a little search on Jake and some of the stupidity that has come out of his mouth.

I've made my points here clear. My opinions..
 
Well i read thru the BP.net thread...im still tryin to figure out why everyone assumes that BPs that eat large meals fast???
 
Gib said:
Just seemed like your posting personal opinions without anything to really backit up...same thing your giving others grief for...


and as far as snakes in the wild...your probally right dead on about that,but Bps well really ALL snakes are opportunistic feeders in the wild,they get a meal whenever they can and also eat whatever they can...that one snake that might only eat 12 times a year Might very well take 5 of those meals in 5 straight days...and this i know FROM doing a lil field research...but that is neither here nor there cause we arent talking about animals that DONT have access to regular food we are talking about Captive pets...are you suggesting i should only feed my snake once a month and let it reach its maximum growth potential???

Another tidbit of fact for ya...basically the main reasons any ectothermic animal's metabolism slows is for lack of food(which puts the body into starvation mode which makes it burn very little energy adn store its food intake straight to fat,this one is true for all animals actually) and number 2 is by lowering of the core temperatures of said animal....now as for snakes fasting...thats a different subject all together no a healthy animal should ever fast unless its been stressed,in breeding mode or one of the 2 aforementiond tidbits on metabolism

HEALTHY is the keyword here
Click to expand...

As far as posting personal opinions without anything to back it up, not exactly. What I backed it up with is real world experience by me and by people I respect in the reptile world.

Meanwhile Jake said, "You can just as well feed a ball a 150-200 gram rat every 7-10 days as compared to 50-80 grams every 5-7 days, infact, I'd rather feed a larger meal every 2 weeks compared to a small meal every week.".

Gib, you are correct in saying that Balls are opportunistic feeders in the wild. They may come across a rodent burrow, eat everything in there and then take over that burrow and not eat for months.

I certainly wasn't saying that you should feed your snakes once a month, although I believe you wouldn't see a negative affect. I believe from everything I have seen (again, in my personal experience and in the experience of people I respect in the business), that overfeeding leads to fasts so the animal can catch up.

But once again, everyone should do what works for them.
 
One thing i'm not seeing here is the size of the adults being fed. Since no snake is equal you can have a 2 kilo female thats long and slender and have one thats short and stocky. Without at least some general sizes to go by here advice is subjective.
 
jglass38 said:
My opinions..
Click to expand...
Haven't we gone over this before, Jamie? You shouldn't go around espousing your opinions as fact...especially when you don't have the experience upon which to formulate educated opinions.
 
BryonsBoas said:
One thing i'm not seeing here is the size of the adults being fed. Since no snake is equal you can have a 2 kilo female thats long and slender and have one thats short and stocky. Without at least some general sizes to go by here advice is subjective.
Click to expand...

Bryon,

I feed even my biggest girls no more than 2 weans/small small rats per week. My biggest is probably 3600-4000 grams.
 
Dr Owens said:
Haven't we gone over this before, Jamie? You shouldn't go around espousing your opinions as fact...especially when you don't have the experience upon which to formulate educated opinions.
Click to expand...

Owens,

Haven't we gone over before that you don't have a clue of my experience or lack thereof? I espoused my opinions based on REAL WORLD experience, mine and others that are respected in the industry. Try to get it through your head, please.

Why do you even both posting replies to anything I say? Its clear that your agenda remains the same. I don't like you, you don't like me. Lets leave it at that.
 
Now we're getting somewhere.

One other question for whoever. Is the reason for the smaller size feeders due to feeding live?

I've had alot of girls in the 1700 - 3000 gram range taking mediums to larges without any ill effects or obesity. Not sure why this is such a touchy subject.
 
Back
Top