(Feeding Ball Python) How Many is Safe?

So we have a little girl ball python. She's probably about half-grown...she's a big girl, but definitely not full grown! Anyways, she's refused from day one to eat anything larger than a rat pup. If it has its eyes open, she WILL NOT eat it. At her size, she SHOULD be eating either large mice or small medium rats, according to everything I've read. But she's stubborn and everytime she's offered something larger than a pup, she won't eat it.

She DOES however eat multiple pups in one sitting. So...I wanted to ask people that know...how many should I be offering her? We were originally given bad advice, that a ball python should only be offered one rat every week even if that one rat was only a pup, so inadvertedly, we were not feeding her nearly enough. However, she ate 4 pups this week, and seemed to be hunting for more, so I'm hoping that someone here might know just how many I should be feeding her.

I don't want to overfeed her, but we're still relatively new to having a ball python, so I don't want to underfeed her either.

As far as Mice go, an adult mouse is the size of a rat pup.

It's hard to say how many you should be feeding, do you know the age of your ball python and her weight? I think with Ball pythons 10-15% of their body weight weekly is ideal.

Deedle wrote:

I think with Ball pythons 10-15% of their body weight weekly is ideal.  

Up to 500 grams offer 10-15% of their weight every five to seven days, once they're bigger then a small rat per week is fine, and I offer a medium rat per week to the larger females.

OP, can I assume you are feeding live? Have you tried her with a weanling f/t rat and just left it with her overnight? She may be intimidated by prey that moves too much.