Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi! I'm new to the group, and although I'm not new to herps, I'm new to snakes. Although we've had an iguana, and still have a mating pair of bearded dragons and a mali uromastyx, we just recently acquired a red rat snake (same as corn snake?) at a local pet store.

The sales person said that the snake was eating approximately one pinky/fuzzy once a week. We bought ones of the similar size that the snake was used to eating.

We have now tried for three weeks to feed him, but with no results. He has not eaten in the three weeks that we have had him, and we're not sure if we should be worried or not.

He is approximately 29" long, and we have him in a 20L gallon tank. He has an undertank heater and a light on one end of the tank, and the other end of the tank is his cool spot. The light gets turned off at night, although the heater is on 24/7.

I know that our lizards have slowed their eating patterns during these cooler months (we live in Wisconsin), but they still eat SOMETHING (just not as much as they do the other months of the year).

At what point should we begin to worry if our snake doesn't begin to eat? Also, does anyone have any tips as to how we can get our snake to feed?

Oh, and one more question -- the pet store said the snake we purchased was a red rat snake. When I did research on-line, it seems that rat snakes and corn snakes are used interchangably. Are rat snakes and corn snakes the same, or different?

Thanks, in advance, for your responses!

Yup, red rat snakes are the same as corn snakes.

Sorry to hear about the little guy not eating. I have a juvenile glades rat that has also refused to eat live pinkies for the past two months...even dead ones for that matter. However, she relishes split brain pinkies. For that, I take a dead pinky and make a small incision into the head to expose the brain. The scent of this seems to be irresistable to the snake. She will eat 2-3 of these about once every 5-6 days. I tried enclosing her in a small sealed dish overnight with her live food - that seems to work with difficult feeders sometimes. However, I would open it to find the pinky crawling around on the snake's back. If the above two methods don't work, you can also scent pinkies with lizard innards to incite a snake's appetite...but I guess it's easier for me to go outside and grab a few brown anoles here in S. Florida than it is for you up in Wisconsin!

Also, the sales person said "one pinky/fuzzy, once a week"... I would think that a 29" corn snake would be eating larger prey, and more of it. Like I mentioned above, I have two glades rats at a little over 3 months old that are eating about 3 (large) pinkies each about every 5-6 days! They are gonna be big girls soon enough!

I hope some of this helps. Good luck!

I have a common Black Rat Snake. She is 12 years old. They are great snakes. I hope you enjoy yours.
To answer the corn snake/rat snake question, corns and rats are in the same genus, Elaphe. So corn snakes are essentially another type of rat snake.
Hope this helps!
CDM