Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've had my female corn snake, Amber, for around a year and 2 months. I had been feeding her 2 or 3 fuzzies, but I began to notice that I couldn't see a noticeable lump in her belly. I recently had 2 adult mice pass, so I offered her one of those. She was able to eat the whole thing without a problem, though she was quite large, afterwards. My questions are, how often should I feed her and are adult mice alright? It probably took her around 3 minutes to get the meal down. Here's a picture of her to give you some idea of her size. She was being a bit squirmy.

Also...Is rodentpro.com a good company to buy frozen feeders from? I have never ordered online, but a frozen adult mouse costs $1.99 in town:/

Her vivarium is 30 inches long, 17 wide and 17 tall. I've been told that is large enough for her, even when she reaches adulthood. Is this true? Has always looked a bit on the small side to me, but this is only my second snake.

Thanks for any help

Adult mice may be a bit too big. Try hoppers or small weanlings instead. Also, I have gotten mice from RodentPro and they are fine. Not crazy about the packaging, but arrived frozen and AOK. At her age with bigger meals, every seven days should be fine unless you are really trying to push her to breed this spring. Then offer her food every four to five days. If you feed a huge meal too often, she may have digestion problems and regurge on you. I fed my hatchlings from this year fuzzy sized mice. They ate it, but were all real lumped up. No way I feed them something that big within four days again.

Her cage sounds fine too. I keep my adult corns in racks with sweater box sized tubs. They are only about 24 x 17 inches and six inches hight.

Take Care

I recommend feeding food items that are the same thickness as the thickest part of the snake. As far as feeding frequency, it depends on your plans. If you plan on breeding, I'd feed the female more often, to build up weight for breeding and to regain weight after eggs are laid. If the snake is not part of a breeding program, one food item per week is a good rule-of-thumb. Though it should be remembered that snakes aren't machines and some metabolize food faster (and need to be fed more often) than others. I've seen a very large number of overweight corns though. Part of snake keeping is to know your individual animals and their habits.

RodentPro is a fine source of rodents, I've used them as well as a few others, like Big Cheese and have no complaints (except for both sometimes being out of the size I need).

Tim

Third Eye

By your tape measure it appears your floor tiles are 12". So she looks a good 30 inches or so. Personally I'd have her on good size mice once a week or so. But increase the size over a few feedings, to see if there is any issues. Do a small mouse, then a bit bigger, then a small adult to adult, but not huge. As feed items gets bigger, spread feedings apart.

OR, feed her more small. It is better for her, it just costs more.

I am notorious for feeding large to some of my snakes. My 4' bloodred can eat medium rats. BUT, it's not the best really. More small is always better. I can't explain it, but I had it explained to me by several biologists, with masters who were into herps,, so I take their word on it.

Good luck and also wait for more responses.

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Thanks for reading.
Big Tom

www.HerpZillA.com

Tom,
I don't have a masters degree in herptology, but I believe what you are refering to is the surface area to mass ratio and how that relates to digestion.
But im like you, I push them a bit too, I like my snakes to be "big boned", not scrawny little starved stunted little runts. But yet not obese adults, the way I have always viewed raising any reptile for that matter is I can push them when they are growing because they put it to growth, then when the reach full size I can back off the feed and put them on a maintanence diet, or if they have been off feed for some time during breeding or gravid, then they can be pushed to get weight back up if they have the appetite for it. But like someone else posted you have to know and read every individual animal because they really vary individual to individual on how they respond. Sometimes it's based on previous experience and sometimes it's evolving, fluid, experimenting, and learning on the fly.
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Jeff Benfer

1.0 pastel Python regius
1.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
1.3 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.2 double het albino and anerythristicThamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
2.2 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
0.2 het Christmas albino Thamnophis radix
1.1 double het cherry erythristic, albino Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 melanistic Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 triple heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 Okeetee Pantherophis guttatus

Sounds right. Honestly it was a few years ago. It just sticks in my head.

I loved "big boned". Me too, When I was breeding my own stuff I varied the size a lot too. It just seemed natural. As a kid I had all the big snakes and 300 cages of rats in my garage. My 7' retic might get 2 larger rats or 6-7 small pups. No other reason than I figured that's what they get in the wild. A 5' corn in the wild could find a mouse nest. Eat any adults and he's going to pass on fuzzies? So I vary when I can.

Odd, I'm about to go to pets o parma and get some rats to breed. Just 1 good colony. With my health my snakes are not getting food near enough. 1 colony can make 6 months worth of stuff in a short time.

Take care
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Thanks for reading.
Big Tom

www.HerpZillA.com

I've worried about her becoming obese, but she's all muscle, from what I can tell. How do you tell if your snake is obese, anyway?

I think I'm going to try to feed her "weanlings" from RodentPro. They look to be just the right size, according to her body width. She handled what they would consider to be an extra large mouse as my girl mice were nearly 2 years old, but I don't want to overdo it.

You can tell if the snake is getting too fat if you see skin showing between the scales, like what you see in the rear portion of many gravid females.

I wish I took pictures of a few creams we had. They were just mushy. Like body love handles. I did not feed them for 2 months. But in my opinion too, a much larger cage is almost always needed. I think we had them in 15 gallons. Snakes want to roam, climb, explore. Most of us, and ME for sure, use far to small of cages, out of convenience. And space issues for breeding racks.

I sit embarrassed as I type this, I have a 4' corn in a 40" long, 6" tall tub when I have 2 open 75 gallon tanks I'd like to make homes for some lizards.

I'm NOT trying to slam anyone, as I'm right there too. I just think we've gotten in a mode of space efficiency at the cost of most herps we keep.

Just trying to be honest.

Just trying to be honest.
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Thanks for reading.
Big Tom

www.HerpZillA.com

An adult mouse is an easy meal. Corns can handle much larger food items, but the limitations of captivity (temp range, humidity, etc) make for better results with food items not as large as in the pic.

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Mark