Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My young, almost a year old corn Snake, is a major pig, it doesn't seem to bother him that i am feeding him before his next shedding, but it was wierd, i don't know if it was a growth spurt or what, but he all of a sudden shed AGAIN, right after his previous molt! IT WAS WIERD! just as well, he has grown extremely active, and quite a bit less aggressive for the past month or so, enabling me to be more hands-on with him, but his sudden activity, and double molt has put me in a state of confusion. Could it be he needs a bigger cage? right now, he's got a fair sized cage, but he's only about 2 and one half feet long, should i get another bigger one? or should I just keep handling him as i have been doing, to get all of his hyperness out? Please help? i don't want him to go into a stress ball. He seems fine, but his molt was abnormal, as well as his activity, i just think he is hitting his semi-adult ages, what do yo think?

For the Record: He is 21/2 ft. in length, an albino amelanesthetic Striped Corn Snake, his gender is still questionable.

A "medium sized cage" doesn't mean much to me. If the floor area is greater then two square feet, it is probably big enough. Though different people have different ideas of what is big enough.

Is it my imagination, or does Angel have a somewhat pop-eyed appearance?

I once had a young corn snake that started shedding every two weeks. Here is what I did for my snake. I got a small bottle of liquid multiple vitamins for birds (with A, C, D3, E, niacin, etc.) and a dead mouse. I opened the belly of the mouse, put one drop of the vitamins in the belly, and then fed the mouse to the snake. In addition to normal feeding, I repeated the vitamin dose once a month for three months. The shedding cycle returned to normal length before the treatment was complete.

Insufficient vitamin A causes undesirable changes in both the skin and eyes in a wide range of vertebrates. I can't be certain that this is the cause of the shedding problem, but I do not think that the vitamins would hurt your snake. I am not a veterinarian, so doing this is at your own risk. Good luck.

Paul Hollander

Thanks for your help, but he only did it once, now he seems to be fine with his molting. I am looking into larger cages right now. Thanks though, i'll keep the vitamins in mind.