Is this a sign that I am under feeding (darwin carpet python)

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Connor_mcw

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So a couple of months ago I got my first snake so I'm still very new to this, I noticed that I could see what I am guessing are muscle strands (see picture) which I hadn't noticed before and was wondering if this was a sign for me to increase how much food i give her.

I can see these lines even when she is relaxed, not just when she is constricting.

For reference on how much she eats
According to her info card the pet store gave me she is about a year old
She shed last weekend so I measured her to be about 80cm
She has been eating 1 fuzzy mouse a week (the store told me to maintain this for 10 weeks before I increase her food size).

Any advice is appreciated.

20190318_201036.jpg
 
Hard to judge the length from a slough, but in the picture it looks tiny for something over a year old, and a year old carpet should be eating stuff much larger than fuzzy mice (I'd have them on what pet shops would call jumbo rats by this age).

You have the snake photographed while it was eating, might as well have included the feed so we could see how much too small it is and we could give you a size reference.

Definitely feed more.
 
Didn't think about including the food in the shot, compared to her the mice are longer than her head, but about as wide as the back of her skull, when they get to the thicker part of her body you have to look real hard to notice where it is.
 
Didn't think about including the food in the shot, compared to her the mice are longer than her head, but about as wide as the back of her skull, when they get to the thicker part of her body you have to look real hard to notice where it is.
Food should leave a noticeable bulge when in the middle the belly

A good way to achieve this is by weighing your snake and finding food equivalent to 20% of snakes weight

Or by getting food which is twice as round the size of middle of snake (the biggest part)
 
Feed a hopper mouse followed by a fuzzy rat. If you thaw both in the same water they will be cross scented and it is more likely to eat the rat. The sooner you get it onto rats the better as mice are too small and expensive for Morelia. Don't worry about trying to aspire to Sadji's feeding regime. He has a 20 year head start on your experience.
 
Yeah, don't think you have to grow them as quickly as I do, and most people would call me an evil powerfeeder, but it gives you a reference for their potential. Having said that, a fuzzy mouse is about 8 grams and I'd be very disappointed if I wasn't feeding a Carpet Python 100g rats at a year of age, and generally I would be feeding them something around twice that size. If they're not comfortably eating 50g rats at a year of age they're being underfed.
 
It's not such a bad thing if a snake matures at 5 - 6 years old rather than 2 - 3 years.

You can push Carpets through and get them to mature at 18 months, most people would say that's bad, we don't need to argue that here. 2-3 years is normal. 4 is okay... I guess, but more than that is really undernourishing the snake, it is unnatural and unhealthy. A snake over a year of age still eating meals a hatchling could comfortably take as its first is clearly malnourished.
 
You can push Carpets through and get them to mature at 18 months, most people would say that's bad, we don't need to argue that here. 2-3 years is normal. 4 is okay... I guess, but more than that is really undernourishing the snake, it is unnatural and unhealthy. A snake over a year of age still eating meals a hatchling could comfortably take as its first is clearly malnourished.

I don’t even start my carpets on fuzzies if I can - straight to small hopper mice... I’ve got 3 month olds eating fuzzie rats or adult mice and I’m feeding them weekly if that


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I don’t even start my carpets on fuzzies if I can - straight to small hopper mice... I’ve got 3 month olds eating fuzzie rats or adult mice and I’m feeding them weekly if that


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Sounds like you call fuzzies what I call velvets. Either way, yep, hatchling Carpets can generally take preweaner mice and should be well beyond that stage by this age.
 
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