How often do you feed ball pythons?

Answer 1

On normal rotation and not a breeding cycle I feed my bp's once per week with appropriate size prey. At times when they are between prey sizes it can be more difficult to determine. At that time i offer the usual size and 3 days later I offer a smaller size prey = i have a 4 year old bp and i feed him once a month. just try to look at the fattest part of your snake and you should feed him with that size.

Answer 2

If the snake is a juvenille usually feeding one purportional sized meal every 5 days is healthy. Sub-adults I would recommend once every 7-10 days. Adults only need to be fed once every 14 days.

Answer 3

Over the last 25 years, the staff of the Day Exhibit at Woodland Park Zoo has received thousands of phone calls from people needing information about their pet reptiles. Common themes have become quite apparent through these many conversations and most are covered here in a very general way. Although the zoo does not wish to actively promote the keeping of exotic animals in the home, zoo staff do want people who have reptiles and amphibians to have the information they need to care for their animals properly. However, many people who wish to engage in a particular activity are not too happy to find out, upon investigation, that there are ethical and environmental aspects to what it is they wish to do, or that it is more technically challenging than they had imagined. Oh, not here, too! Isn't life complicated enough without getting all tangled up over something as seemingly straightforward as keeping a treefrog in a classroom terrarium? Yeah, it is. Sorry about that. But this isn't all bad news. You can still enjoy the magic of exotic animals, in your home or in your classroom, without sin. Read on. Researching and Choosing a Pet Reptile or Amphibian

Before you acquire an exotic animal of any kind, you should learn (research, read) about its care. Over the last few years, as interest in captive reptiles skyrocketed, a series of excellent and inexpensive booklets were published, which explain the care of a particular popular kind of reptile or amphibian. Not every one of the thousands of species of reptiles and amphibians are covered by one of the booklets, but most of the popular species are. The booklets together form the Herpetocultural Library Series, and having read the appropriate booklet, one can go about readying a home for the new reptile. There are other similar booklets available that are simply not as good. These should be passed over in favor of the Herp. Library Series, booklets of which can be ordered through your local pet store or directly from The Bean Farm ((206)-861-7964) in Carnation, Washington, which stocks most of the different titles. Often, people put the cart before the horse and buy an animal before educating themselves about its needs. The animal then has to endure until its requirements can be discovered and accommodated. This is obviously not ideal. Sometimes, a pet store staff person will give verbal instructions on care. At best this is too brief -- it is not reasonable to expect one person to tell everything about the care of an exotic animal to another, not to leave anything out, and for the other person to remember it all accurately, for years afterward. At worst, it can be well-intentioned misinformation, or even disinformation to encourage the sale of the animal or associated goods or feed ("Naaah, baby alligators don't get all that big, and you can always donate them to the zoo!"). Some wild-caught animals are sold in pet stores without any real information on their care or even their natural history being available -- they may never have been imported before and no one knows anything about them. This happens all the time as animals from a particular country or region become available, and wholesalers order up a quantity of new, cheap and "cool" animals. Some captive-bred reptiles and amphibians, which we believe make better classroom "pets" than most are: bearded dragons, horned frogs, corn snakes, boa constrictors, and leopard geckos. All are bred in captivity in large numbers, are fairly easy to care for, and can be handled to a greater or lesser extent (less on the horned frogs, more on everything else). Some reptiles which are really not good pets: spectacled caimans (also known as "baby alligators"), venomous snakes and giant pythons. Crocodilians, including caimans and alligators, are sold in large numbers in the pet trade and almost never (like one in a hundred thousand, perhaps) survive to maturity. Who has a place for an adult crocodilian? They get big, they're hard to handle, they require a large amount of space, clean warm water, a place to bask, and appropriate-sized small whole animals to eat. Many, like the "Green Lake Gators" of a few years ago, are released in local bodies of water, where they die of cold, pneumonia or other disease, or starvation. Giant pythons are generally sold as babies, and many people become gradually more discouraged with the increasing challenges of caring for a snake which just grows and grows and grows. Snakes over 10 feet, even good-natured ones, can overpower their owners in their excitement over food, and once every year or two someone in North America is killed by their pet python in just this way. They get bigger than their owners, eat bunnies as adults, need large cages, and are hard to find pet sitters for when you go out of town. Venomous snakes are really bad pets. Bites occur with amazing frequency in Western Washington, all from pet venomous snakes. We're continually loaning our antivenom to local hospitals. Crocodilians, giant pythons and venomous snakes are all prohibited in the City of Seattle, and are subject to confiscation. Crocodilians and venomous snakes are prohibited in King County. Animals Bred in Captivity vs. Wild-Caught Animals

There are many reptiles and amphibians in captivity which were taken from the wild. The ancestors of all captive-bred animals came from the wild. There is no point in making children or anyone else feel guilty about already having an animal which used to live free in nature, but everyone should give some thought to the following before acquiring any more wild-caught animals: Today, more reptiles and amphibians are being taken from the wild than ever before, in spite of the wild becoming smaller and more damaged every day, and in spite of more reptiles and amphibians being bred in captivity than ever before. Over the last 10 years, interest in and demand for reptiles, especially novel and interesting species, has grown incredibly. Some kinds of reptiles are collected by the tens of thousands and are sold in lots of a hundred or more for quantity discounts. Because every step of the exotic animal trade (importer to wholesaler to pet store) doubles the price of each animal, many animals can die along the way without significantly impacting the profitability of the enterprise. There is little regard for the wild population's ability to withstand these sorts of pressures. One example: North American box turtles. Huge numbers are taken for the domestic pet trade and thousands more are exported to Europe each year. Box turtles do not produce very many babies each year, and most of their babies are taken by their natural predators. There is no way that the wild population can sustain this sort of pressure. In Egypt, the Egyptian tortoise (the second-smallest tortoise species in the world) was wiped out in just a few years by exportation for the pet trade. When importers learned that the U.S. government had set a date for the tortoise to be placed on the endangered species list and importation of the tortoise would therefore be made nearly impossible, they increased the pace of their imports to the point that the price for each animal plummeted. Most of the tortoises did not appear to adjust well to captivity. Many died. By the time the tortoise had been officially declared endangered, it had been completely wiped out in the land for which it is named. It can be found today only in national parks in Israel. (Unfortunately Israel has nowhere else to conduct its military exercises, and tanks drive back and forth through the tortoise habitat...) The trade in wild-caught reptiles and amphibians is all about money; the animals are simply commodities to be harvested and sold. The typical scenario: each animal, which has managed to run the gauntlet of competition, predation, starvation and disease, is picked from its habitat like a piece of ripe fruit, tossed in a bag with many others of its kind, is held in primitive conditions for a period of time, then endures a journey from its native land to an importer's facility where it is caged with many others, is exposed to their illnesses, and is given little or no care until it is shipped to a pet store. Even at the pet store, it will usually continue to share its accommodations with so many of its own species or other species that it will be very stressed and often will not feed. Because reptiles do not need to eat as much or as often as mammals or birds, some survive this journey and are purchased by well-meaning pet store customers. It doesn't really matter whether an individual animal will survive in captivity or even survive to reach the pet store, or will make a good pet, or if the wild population can survive collection pressure. What drives the trade is the money that can be made from it over the short term. So What to Do?

There are large numbers of reptiles and amphibians bred in captivity, especially of certain popular species. Purchasing these animals does not have an ecological downside, and they are of species that are known to do well in captivity and whose care is understood. They are usually healthy when purchased, and are far more likely to thrive than a cheaper, but wild-caught animal.

Answer 4

It really depends on the size and age of your snake. When I first got mine he was very small and ate one very small mouse every five to seven days. Then as he grew so did the mouse. Now he eats two large mice every ten to fourteen days. I think he will be moving up to a rat soon. He is now about three feet long.

Answer 5

I offer food to my Ball [Royal] Python every week. If one doesn't eat, I'll offer again in 4 or 5 days. The size of the mouse or rat will depend on the size of the python... you want the prey to be nearly as big around as the body of the python, maybe a little smaller, but no larger. A small mouse for a large python will NOT be enough nourishment, and a small python won't be able to swallow a large rat, so feed accordingly.

Answer 6

you should feed your ball phython twice a month because pythons can go up to two month without food.....