Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We have a corn snake who is about a year old now. She always eats a large pinkie every week, like clockwork. But she skipped last week, refusing her meal. We've tried every day since then and she won't eat anything. She is still defecating normally. Any suggestions? Should we leave her alone for a bit? We bought new frozen pinkie's hoping that would help, but it hasn't. We're very worried at this point.

My corn usually will not eat if she is close to shedding.

I will offer some suggestions, but a picture and a little more info would be helpful. How long is it? What size cage is it in, and what temp do you have the warm side and the cool side?

At one year old, your corn snake should be eating at least fuzzy mice if not larger. As an example, I have a 14-month-old that is close to four feet long, and eating medium sized adult mice. If yours is still on pinkies, it has been way underfed in my opinion (no offense intended.) When it starts eating again, start feeding slightly larger food items, every 4 or 5 days, and see if you can get some noticeable growth.

It should have a temperature gradient for proper digestion. Most people shoot for 85 F on the warm end, and room temp or cooler on the cool end. Also provide hides at both ends.

If you think it is close to shedding, give it a moist hide also. A small cottage cheese container with a hole cut in the side, filled with damp moss, works well. If it goes a week, or even a month, without eating it should be fine unless it is underweight.

I hope this is helpful. Let us know if you have more questions.

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Kent

She is close to a year old if not a year old. They estimated her age at 3 months when I bought her in December. She is not yet 2 feet long, longer than 1.5 feet, but she isn't very big girth wise so we upgraded to larger pinkies, but not fuzzy mice. Afraid of regurgitation (should we be worried)? She has NEVER refused food before. She is in a 20 long tank. She has hides on both ends. The warm end is at 80-82 with a black night heat light and a heater mat on that end. The cool end hovers at 70-75. She always has moist moss that we keep in a separate water dish, which is her favorite hide. She has a wooden climb toy and some fake plants. We left her be yesterday and day before, thinking she needed some time to shed if that's what she was going to do, but we find no shed. We got her out today, gave her a 'shed bath' with shed ease by zilla. Her eyes are bright, she's strong. She appears healthy. We're going to try to feed her again tonight. We've always warmed the pinkies in water, do you think she may not like that anymore and is there a better way? I have no idea what to do with her! (Call her a 'her' because she is very narrow at the tail, it's an educated guess). should we go get fuzzies, maybe she doesn't like a small meal?? Thank you!!!!!

Her setup sound pretty good, but you might up the temp on the warm end to closer to 85. One question: how do you measure the temp? I use digital thermometers with temp probes that I secure to the glass directly above the undertank heater with scotch tape, under the hide. That way you know what the temp is where the snake lays, not the air temp.

I also thaw in warm water. It wouldn't hurt to try a larger meal. You want it to be big enough to make a bulge, but not so large that the snake has a struggle swallowing it. It is amazing large a meal a corn snake can swallow in proportion to their size.

I knew a pet store owner who had a young burmese python, and a young corn snake in the same enclosure. (Not advised I know!) He put a medium sized pre-killed mouse in for the python, and when he went back later to check, the corn snake had eaten the mouse. Normally he would have fed it a large pinky or fuzzy. Anyway, it went on to digest that meal just fine. I suppose it was lucky the python wasn't hungry too!

Has she always shed ok? Hasn't she stopped eating when she was close to shedding? Some of my corn snakes stop eating, and others keep right on eating even when their eyes are so cloudy they can't see.

As I said before, I wouldn't be too worried yet, as they can go a long time without eating if in good condition.
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Kent

WE have a digital with the probles that are just above the undertank heater with a suction cup. The non heated side we just use a regular thermometer stuck to the glass. I will get a larger bulb this week and warm her up, we moved to a smaller bulb over the summer, but had a larger one in there over winter.

She has never missed a meal, even when she was going to shed. She didn't eat last night again. We do move her into a tupperware dish for feeding and I wonder if it's not big enough anymore and plan to try something larger.

Should I be offering her something every day until she eats? I'm throwing away dead mice like crazy! (not that it's expensive, I just feel wasteful I guess, there may be starving snakes out there haha).

Thanks for all the help. She's my sons snake (he's 13). But I must say I enjoy her quite a bit.

Sound like you are doing everything right. Sometimes you just have to wait them out.

Good luck!
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Kent

She died today. I cannot figure out why. She looks healthy, no mites, good skin. My son is devestated.
We have no reputable breeders in our area that I can locate. I'm afraid to do another pet store purchase (though we did have her for almost a year).

I am sorry to hear that. I would recommend that you try to locate a reptile show near you. There are also some good sites on the Kingsnake.com businesses page that you can learn from. You can also check out the classifieds section.
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Kent