Wanted to share a few more pictures and updates of my Jungle Carpet Python. Things are going really well, and I think I've fixed up the last of my mistakes (heat tape orientation relative of the enclosure, and feeder sizes). That said, I do have a quick question about feeders that I hope can be answered given the information/pictures that I have!
Somewhere in a previous thread, either here or on another site, someone mentioned that I should be feeding something much larger than rat pinkies. So I eyeballed the thickest part of the snake, took a picture of him with my hand for comparison, and then headed to the exotic pet store to buy some feeders. Came home with a few frozen rats that are either fuzzies or pups. I'm thinking pups, actually, because they're very close to around 3" in length.
My question - are rat pups an appropriately sized prey to be feeding a baby snake once a week? Or should I be going smaller? I want to say that it's within 1.5x the thickest part of his body, but it's pretty startling how far he has to stretch to accommodate the prey size. Also, it's been 48+ hours since he's fed, and there's still quite a noticeable bulge in his stomach.
Some really bad cellphone pictures to show scale -
"More?"
(please note: the heat tape is resting against the wall and not the tub. After I changed the orientation, the tape was too long so the extra part was just propped up. Surface temperatures on that side are completely fine and virtually unaffected!).
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