The baseline entry: who this snake is
Before the first feed, write down what you know. Record the species and morph in full, the sex if the breeder established it, the hatch date, and the breeder or shop it came from, with the purchase paperwork kept behind the entry. Note anything the seller told you about its feeding so far — what size of mouse it has been taking and how readily. Once the snake has had a few days to settle, take its first weight on a kitchen scale in a tub, and a rough length, and write both beside the date. Photograph it from above in the same session. This baseline is the anchor every later measurement gets compared against.
The feeding log: the heart of the record
Log every feed, not just the successful ones. Each entry takes seconds: the date, what was offered, whether it was eaten, refused, or taken and later regurgitated, and anything notable like a feed taken only when left overnight. A refusal looks alarming alone and ordinary in a pattern — three misses before a shed is a classic sequence you will only recognise if the log exists. Over months this becomes the clearest picture of the snake's health you own, and it is the first thing an experienced keeper or vet will ask to see if growth stalls.
Sheds and weights: the growth thread
Write down each shed with its date and whether it came off in one piece or in patches — repeated poor sheds point at humidity worth fixing. Weigh at a steady interval, perhaps monthly for a baby, always at the same point in the feeding cycle so the numbers compare fairly, and add a length check every few months. Plotted or simply listed, the weights should climb in a fairly smooth line. A plateau in a young snake that is eating is worth a closer look; a fall is worth a vet conversation, and having the dated figures turns that conversation from guesswork into evidence.
Keep the system small enough to survive
The record that works is the one still being written in month six. One page or one entry per event, kept where the snake is fed, takes under a minute a time. Resist elaborate charts you will abandon; dates, food, sheds, and weights are the whole skeleton. Add occasional notes only when something genuinely changes — a new enclosure, a regurgitated meal, a vet visit — and the history stays clean instead of cluttered.
For the first weeks, also jot a line about behaviour alongside the formal entries: when the baby explores, whether it hides all day, how it reacts to the tongs. A shy hatchling that has always hidden is no concern; one that stops exploring after feeding well for a month is telling you something. These small observations cost a sentence each and often explain the numbers later.
Building that record in KinsLe's Pet Passport from day one means the baseline, every feed, and every shed live in one growing packet that can go to a vet or a future keeper whole.