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My corn is a little over 4 years old & is 5 feet long. I usually feed him about 5-8 large mice every 10-14 days or so. A few months ago a gave him his 1st rat (a large) and he ate it w/no problems at all. 2 or 3 weeks later, I offered him another large rat. After a couple of missed strikes at it, he began to completely ignore it, as if he wasnt interested. So I figured he probably wasn't hungry. 1 week later I offer him a small rat & he took it w/out hesitation. The other day I offered him a large rat, he refused it. Then I offer him a small rat which he also refused. Finally I offer him a mouse and accepted it. After eating the mouse I gave him hopper rat & he devoured that too. Has anybody else experienced something like this w/their corn or any other species of snakes before? & why all of a sudden would he not want small (or larger) rats anymore?

Any positive advice and/or comments would be appreciated. Thanks in advance....

Yes, this happens very often with snakes being offered a new food item(rat). When it has been used to being fed mice all this time,then a rat is offered, the snake smells it with his tongue, and figures what the heck, I'll try it, and misses it several times, it then begins to equate this problem with the new smell of rat and doesn't know what to make of it.What you do in this situation is take the rat/mouse out of the cage for a couple hour or so, and start over. many times the snake will have forgotten about the earlier episode, and will feed without a problem!........I have been in the "snake game" for about 40 years now, and would suggest you pre-kill the prey before feeding, as leaving a prey item unattended with your snake could result in some very serious injury(believe it or not). I have had Indigo snakes that have had their tail eaten all the way up to the cloaca(butthole)by a mouse that wasn't eaten!!. Feeder rodents are capable of inflicting serious injury on a snake if they are not eaten soon. Although a snake is capable of killing the prey anytime it wishes to, if the snake doesn't want to eat it, it will many times not protect itself against attack either........Snakes would NEVER encounter this problem in the wild,as both prey and snake could flee at will. But in a caged environment, neither snake,nor mouse can escape!!.Many of my "snake" friends have told me numerous horror stories similar to this. Also, if a snake gets a bad hold of the mouse/rat while constricting it, it's mouth is very often free to bite the hell out of the snakes face,mouth, and body!!, Ive seen this way too many times. Not only do frozen rodents not fight, the freezing kills ALL parasites(and there are many)in the rat/mouse............hope this helps.....................Doug

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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

Assuming you're feeding live (it SOUNDS like it but I wasn't sure), I agree with Doug, start feeding frozen thawed as soon as possible. If he's had live all his life, it may take him a while to adjust, but usually not. Either way, some snakes are just picky about what they eat and may eat something one week and refuse the same thing the next. It's not really an issue unless you're wasting a lot of food.

One question though. What do you consider a "large" rat? What I consider a large rat would be way too big for a 5 foot corn snake. Some of them just don't do well on large prey items. I would probably feed a corn that size small-medium rats...maybe the equivalent of 2-3 adult mice. Also take into consideration that at 5 feet, your corn is pretty well mature and may not eat as much (relative to his size) as he did when he was younger...
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

I've experienced this mainly w/ my WC snakes that I've kept up through the winter. I had a male SD Gopher that would eat rat pups all year long if I kept him up. I have 2 female Great Basin Gophers, 1 an '05 regularly eating rat pups, the other an '06 taking hoppers. I don't know if there is any correllation between their choice of foods and the weather (I'm in Chatsworth, CA and it's quite "California cold" out here now = 50-30F) , but the '05 GB Gopher (too young to breed which is why she's up) is refusing rat pups and is only taking hoppers. The '06 GB is refusing hoppers and only taking fuzzies. Strange.

reako45

Thanks to all for taking the time to give me some positve input & advice. I will definetely take your input into consideration.

to Larry f: I'm going off of what I've seen on some websites as bein considered 'large' rats. But compared to others, the rat may have been medium or small. But thanks anyway....