Newbie question

[LordWorm]

Hey, so just a quick newbie question, i have a 5 month old stimpson python, he seems to want to eat 1 pinky every 3-4 days, i know in the wild they could go a hell of a lot longer than that between meals, my question is, will it hurt him/her to feed that often?

Also just wondering what other people have their thermostat set as? I curently have it set at 30 and a variation of 4, for those who use uv, what kind of time do you have that on for each day? Encolsure is in a well-lit room anyway.

Thanks in advance and please forgive my naivety

 

[Benno87]

I’ll let the experts answer this properly for you coz I’m only new to the hobby. But I reckon your snake may need its food size upped

 

[LordWorm]

Thanks for the response mate. Im really stoked to finally get a pet snake. Pretty sure its a girl but im a complete noob so could be wrong lol. Only going by tail width. Still not 100% on a name either

 

[Pauls_Pythons]

Pinkies are nothing more than a bag off mush with little nutritional value.
Of course you need to take into account the size of the animal but an increase in food size would seem appropriate.

 

[Kirk1701]

I've got a 6 month Spotted and he's on fuzzy mice, up the size of the food and don't feed quite as often. I have my thermostat set to 32, variability of 1 degree. Can't tell you about UV because I don't use it for my snake.

 

[LordWorm]

Thanks guys, im pretty sure now that ive got a female, bow to finalise a name....
Are fuzzy mice the next step up or is there something in between?

 

[Buggster]

Yep fuzzy mice would be good.

Sole UV should be used during daylight hours. Just note glass completely blocks UV so having your snake is a ‘bright’ room won’t do much. Even mesh can filter out UV to an extent.

 

[LordWorm]

Thanks buggster, now rhat you mention it, i have been told about the uv and glass before, just needed a reminder, cheers lol

 

[Sdaji]

I wouldn't bother with UV. It won't do anything useful and it can sometimes upset them.

It's difficult to judge what size you should be feeding without seeing the snake, but for newbies a rough rule of thumb is about 15-20% of the snake's weight is good. You can go a bit larger if you want to. I was talking to a friend today who has a Stimson's still on pinkies, which I found funny because a few days ago I heard from another guy who has a couple from the same clutch which are eating jumbo mice. The small one is 12g, and the large ones are probably at least ten times that based on the pictures I saw, and what they're eating. At first I told my friend it would surely be ready for something larger than pinkies, but if he wanted to weight it and send a picture he could, and to my surprise, it's really not ready for anything larger. That's the difference between a first time keeper and a veteran herper who loves to powerfeed! I'm sure yours is somewhere in between.

I wouldn't call myself a newbie, but if you can visually sex 8 month old Antaresia with a high level of accuracy you're far better at it than I am!

Congratulations on getting your first snake! Have fun! Welcome to the world of herping

 

[LordWorm]

Thanks mate no where near 100% on the sex, thats just going by tail shape which i know isnt always accurate anyway.

Thanks for the advice, i will weigh and find out
[doublepost=1533874395,1533863139][/doublepost]So "she" is 16.5g so ill look for some bigger food thanks everyone