Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My WC corn layed 33 eggs about a week or so ago ( THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP WITH THEM, THEIR DOING GREAT ) , and the snake is very skinny, extra skin all over her body. She is very " lazy ", I place her in her tank and she moves a foot or 2 and just lays their, in a very ackward postition, not coiled up like a normal snake would. So, I tried feeding her everythin I could get my hands on, live baby pidgeons, frozen scented and non scented mice, anoles, skinks, pidgeon eggs. I just absolutely cannot get her to eat. She is very very skinny, I mean when she coils up, their is skin that folds over! I feel so bad. So out of desperation, I force fed her a pinkie ( I had one already thawed from a Louisian milk that refused her 2nd meal ) and a large anole lizard, I know this isn't much but I wanted her to hold it down. Now, should I get 3 or 4 fuzzies and force feed them ( I prefer force feeding smaller food , it goes easier on the snake , PS I absolutely never force feed unless completely necessary)? I hate to force feed, but I feel very strongly this snake will die without it. Please dont just read this post and go on, a snakes life may depend on it. Thank You, ~JASON~

I did pretty much what you are doing, although I often just tube fed them a small amount of canned cat food mixed with water - seems easy to digest. But I have used small fuzzies on occasion too. If you have any problem getting them down, dab a little butter on the nose and head so it will slide down easily. Anything very small and easy to digest is what you want to use. You can even poke holes in the fuzzy to increase the access of the digestive juices, making it easier to digest. If she has no other problems and isn't too far gone, you can usually bring exhausted females back in this manner. It requires not only very small meals, but very frequent, too. Once she has held down some very small meals every 4 days or so (maybe for 2 or 3 weeks), increase the number of fuzzies per meal for a few more weeks before increasing the prey size to regular mice - assuming she is eating on her own by then. (several small items are easier to digest than one bigger item of the same mass). If she holds down the meals and looks a little better in a few weeks, then she will probably make it through. You could dust the food with a multi vitamin and mineral supplement too. But only do that for a few weeks as overdosing is at least as bad as not using any, and there is no min. daily requirement listed for snakes, and no way to know exactly how much is too much.

Good luck!

My corn always just jumps right back after laying. She usualy doesnt eat until she sheds. Make sure None of the eggs have binded. I would go with the smallest mouse you can get.
Corns Rule
Blake M.

this is prolly something that you already checked out, but did you make sure that she did not retain any eggs? this could cause her lots of stress which could lead to her not eating.
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-Ball Python
-Tangerine Corn Snake
-Het for Snow Corn
-Ghost Corn

well, today i tried a very small live mouse, as you suggested. Nothing, the mouse walked right onto her head. I tried pinkies, an a pushed the pinkie head into the tip of her mouth, very slowly she ate 2 pinkies ( about 5 minuites each ). I have some hope she will make a recovery. Their are no retained eggs. Thanks guys.

I had 6 females lay this weekend alone...all ate the same day after laying.most all my corns eat after laying......as soon as I take their eggs......

what do I do that you do not..?

I raise 30 buckets of hamsters(pair in eaCH )...AND 15 TANKS OF PEROMYSCUS LEUCOPUS.......(darn cap button).......

......I used chinese hamster for most corns....they eat right away......I used mice...and showed my wife on sunday..mouse walked around ..snake ran away.....grabbed a hamster....wham....like a whole new snake.....

works.......

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people.........people are stupid.........
really......really.........

>>I had 6 females lay this weekend alone...all ate the same day after laying.most all my corns eat after laying......as soon as I take their eggs......
>>

I do the same thing...right after I pull the eggs, I feed the mom.
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Mike Heinrich
michael.heinrich@comcast.net

All my mother corns have done as you've said, except this one, KEEP IN MIND she is a WC animal. Kinda strange.thanks guys, I may try a hampster

How long have you had her? Did you catch her gravid and did she eat for you before? Some WCs will NOT eat in captivity.

It seems you're on the same train of thought I am; that she's acting differently because she's a wild caught. I'm glad you got her to eat something. Hopefully she'll snap out of this stress mode soon.

Is she drinking? One of my females used to get so exhausted that she couldn't even raise her head to drink and got very dehydrated. Have you tried picking her head up and dunking her snout in her water? Mine got the idea like that and started to drink. I dosed the water with Critical Care Formula or Reptoboost while I was trying to pursuade her to eat again.