My corn snake, not sure whether it is a male/female, seems to be constantly moving around and never stops. It always is staring into the glass tank. Ive had it for about 1/2 a year and it has never done this before. Also it has stopped eating, it has not eaten in 3 weeks. I hope nothing is wrong, is there? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Overly agitated?
jeremyc
May 18, 2003 11:20 PM
Replies (2)
oldherper
May 19, 2003 08:18 AM
This could very well be related to breeding season, particularly if it's a male (related to food refusal). If you don't see any other symptoms, don't get too worried yet. Don't try to feed the snake every day...give it a week in between attempts. If it hasn't eaten after 6 or 8 weeks, then post again and we'll try to walk you through some things. Another thing I've seen people do is to attempt to feed a live mouse while the snake is in shed. If you leave the mouse in the cage unattended with the snake (particularly if the snake is opaque) and the snake does not eat the mouse right away, then the mouse will harrass the snake and stress it. In my opinion, you should ALWAYS feed frozen/thawed miced rats or at the very least freshly killed ones. It's NEVER a good idea to feed live animals except in rare cases where that's the ONLY thing the snake will accept, and then you should never leave the mouse and snake together unattended. A live mouse or rat can kill or injure a snake, plus freezing has the benefit of killing many of the worms and bugs that mice can transmit to reptiles.
Watch for abnormal looking stool, regurgitation, etc. It would be helpful to get someone to sex the animal for you. If it's a female, watch for swelling in the posterior 1/3 of her body. This could indicate the presence of eggs, either fertile or non fertile, if she's an adult. If infertile eggs are present, this can lead to a condition called egg-binding which can be fatal if the eggs aren't removed.
chrish
May 19, 2003 09:08 AM
My corn snake, not sure whether it is a male/female, seems to be constantly moving around and never stops. It always is staring into the glass tank. Ive had it for about 1/2 a year and it has never done this before. Also it has stopped eating, it has not eaten in 3 weeks. I hope nothing is wrong, is there? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
There are usually three things that will make a normally inactive snake become suddenly active -
1. The breeding season. Sometimes when the breeding season begins, a male snake will start to increase it's activity and begin "wandering". They may also stop feeding. However, this isn't really pronounced in corn snakes in my experience.
2. Hunger. If your snake is refusing food, however, that would tend to remove this possibility.
3. Discomfort. Check to make sure the conditions in the animal's cage are still correct. Do you have an appropriate temperature gradient (a warm area around 85° and a cool area around 75°)? Is there an appropriate hidebox? Is there fresh water available in a bowl?
I would try to eliminate these possibilities in reverse order. First make sure the physical conditions in the cage are correct. Then try offering food, as normal. If these things don't work, it might be a breeding urge. Just wait it out a few weeks.
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Chris Harrison
