Is my snake small for its age?

[laboracle]

I know that each snake grows at its own pace but I have two snakes that are extremely different in size. My snow corn (Orlando) is 7 months old and is 19.3 inches long. My creamsickle (Mango) is also 7 months old (According to the breeder the hatched 1 day apart) and he is 13.5 inches long. THey are fed the same way 1 mouse, 1 to 1.5 times the girth of the snake every 6 to 7 days. Is it unusual for Mango to be that small or is Orlando on a growth spurt.

BTW: I took Mango's feces into the vet and it got a clean bill.

[CAV]

What size of prey are you feeding every 6-7 days? If your 7 month old corns are still eating pinkies, then that would explain the size issue.

[laboracle]

like I said I try to stick to the 1-1.5 times the girth rule. So The bigger one is eating large fuzzys and the smaller one small fuzzys/large pinks. I say /large pinks because they are kinda borderline. Should I push it to bigger fuzzys?

[Neumann]

How often you feed and what you feed will have an impact on growth but it could quite possibly be genetics. I remember reading an article about two sibling boids that were fed the same size prey at the same intervals. One grew to be rather large while the other remained relatively smaller.

If they're otherwise healthy and feeding regularly then I wouldn't worry about it. From my experience with our two snakes, they seem to have little growth spurts now and again. Your little guy may suddenly stretch out in length or start to get rounder around the middle. I seem to have the same growth spurts, but mine are always in the middle.
:cheers:

Cheers,
Jason

[leia]

Just a random thought:

Would the gender of the snake have anything to do with growth rate, or adult sizes? Or does that not play much of a role in growth?

[Amanda E]

Well, I don't have that large of a sample size, just 2 males and 2 females (not counting the 2 adults I just got), but the females grew much quicker than the males despite being fed the same amount of food.

The females are thicker, heavier, and longer than the males at the same age.