Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I posted a similar question in the pit forum about my bull and pine. but this applies to our corn snakes.
I'm about to order bulk feeders for the first time, and I'm not sure what to get.
My son and daughter each have a 5 month old normal phase corn snake (clutch mates). Right now they are eating VERY small mouse pinkies.
I know that every snake is different, but I'm just looking for a an estimation, so I know what to order. What should I expect them to be eating six months from now? On the average, how long should I expect them to be on mouse pinkies before moving them up to something larger. Should I switch them to rats as soon as I can, or should I leave them on mice.
I'm just worried I"m going to either not get enough pinkies or get too many pinkies and have nothing to feed them to. I've had snakes in the past that showed no interest in small prey items.

I usually start feeding my corns large pinks when they hit about 10 grams, then double pinks at about 16 grams, and then bump them up to fuzzies at around 25 grams.

If you don't want to bother with weighing, then they can eat prey items up to 1 1/2 times as wide as the widest part of their body.

thank you for the suggestions.
As of their last weigh in, one is 8 grams the other is 10, they are due to be weighed Feb 3 (weighing once a month)

How often are you feeding them? They're barely above hatching weight.

I'm not sure what their current weight is, we weighed them each when we got them. The larger of the 2 (Fettuccine) on Jan 3 and the other (Jager)on Jan 10.
Fettuccine started his 5 day feeding cycle on the 4th.
Jager refused food on his first day (only tried because the breeder said he was supposed to eat that day, and it was a short ride home, so I didn't think he'd be too stressed). He started every wednesday on the 15th.
Fettucine shed since we have had him.
I usually weigh my snakes monthly, so I'll know their current weight soon.

Corns at 5 months of age should be on small mice. If given proper husbandry (i.e. temps, humidity, etc) cornsnakes CRUSH mice!! I feed hatchlings two to three prey items every 3-5 days. The key is proper husbandry allowing their natural metabolism to function. In nature hatchlings try to find enough prey to gain size as to not become a prey item themselves and to recruit offspring as soon as possible.

Cheers,
Ken

Not every corn is going to be on adult mice or weanlings at 5 months of age. In fact, I don't think I've heard of any like that. Average size for a yearling seems to be between 40 and 100 grams, depending on the snake. I've had clutchmates fed on the same schedule that exhibited that range of size difference.

so, am I not feeding them enough?
three pinkies for a hatchling every 3-5 days seems awfully extreme.

Poomwah, in nature a baby cornsnake does not find a mouse nest and only eat one pinky. It eats as many as it can get before the mother mouse returns or it is full.
If you want to put human terms or some "recipe" Internet feeding schedule on your 5 month old corn then that is your decision. But please read some books on cornsnakes. They are designed to eat ALOT of rodents by nature. Nature doesn't weigh animals or determine their caloric intake. Humans do.
Remember HUSBANDRY is the key to a healthy happy cornsnake!!
You'll be amazed at their appetites!

Cheers,
Ken

Not sure where the SHE comes in. I'm a male, but anyway.
Nature doesn't necessarily translate to healthy herp husbandry.
Yes, in nature, they will eat as much as they can whenever they can. Luckily in captive herp keeping, they have food available readily, so they don't have to gorge and then hope they find food later. Just because they do it in nature doesn't make it healthy for them. Breeding at 9 months old may happen in nature, and it might help the species by creating more offspring , but its definitely NOT healthy for the snake. Proper husbandry is not replicating what the animal would go through in the wild.
I have read quite a bit about corn snakes, including the Munson Plan, created by a breeder to promote quick growth. He recommends 1 pinky every 4 days for hatchlings, not 2-3 every 3-5 days. And even Munson's ideas are considered over feeding my most people.
I have been keeping reptiles for 30 years, I just never bought food that far in advance before. I can't remember what ages different snakes were when I bumped them up to their next size prey, I always judged by their current size, appetite, how long before defecating after eating, etc etc.
I weigh my snakes to keep track in case they develop some sort of health issue. If a snake goes off feed, I want more of an indicator of weight loss than just looking at the snake and guessing.

Sorry about calling you a female, I must have misread the original post. If you've been keeping reptiles for 30 years, then why the newbie question?

you can call it a newbie question if you want, but as far as why I asked it, if you had read the post that you replied to, it said
"I have been keeping reptiles for 30 years, I just never bought food that far in advance before. I can't remember what ages different snakes were when I bumped them up to their next size prey, I always judged by their current size, appetite, how long before defecating after eating, etc etc. "

You seem to be hung up on weight? I've bred cornsnakes at 9 months of age. Nature doesn't have a scale. Husbandry is the key word here. If you want to keep a single animal as a pet and not let it be a cornsnake then yes you can weigh it and feed it a single prey item every "insert calendar date" here. Her original question was what a 5 month old corn should be eating. A small mouse is no problem for a properly maintained cornsnake.

You mean for a powerfed snake that is going to be unhealthy. Wild snakes aren't 3 feet long at a year old, because while they may gorge when they find a nest, it might be 3 weeks before they find another.

Also, just because they *can* breed at 9 months doesn't mean they *should* breed at 9 months. That's like saying a human girl who starts menstruating at age 10 is totes ready to pop out a baby. Her ovaries might be up to the task, but the rest of her is not.

It's unethical because breeding is physiologically very stressful on a snake and overbreeding will shorten the lifespan of pretty much any animal. Breeding young tends to wear them out as well.

In nature, that doesn't matter as long as the female survives just long enough to reproduce a few times and get her genes out there. If she dies after that, so what.

Well, I'm a vet tech and not nature. I want my girls to live into their late teens, early twenties because while I do breed them, they are also my pets and my responsibility. I give them years off. I don't try to double clutch them.

I would say that you stated this perfectly, but, we don't know anything, we better go read some books about corn snakes and HUSBANDRY. How dare we? I mean who are we to try to give our snakes a long healthy life.

I keep seeing the word "husbandry" come up. Is that really the right word to use? In a human/animal relationship, "husbandry" means you are domesticating and raising animals to eat them. I'm not planning on eating the animals in my house. I just take care of them. Farmers raise animals to eat all the time, and that's where the word came from. How it started getting used among herpers confuses me.
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JonathanI

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
~Albert Einstein

" You mean for a powerfed snake that is going to be unhealthy. Wild snakes aren't 3 feet long at a year old, because while they may gorge when they find a nest, it might be 3 weeks before they find another. "

You have no idea how right you are.

In the wild, it is feast or famine. It is just that simple.

The bottom line/reasoning why pushers do what they do, and they try to mask what they do, or justify it, by saying how " natural " it is for them to powerfeed, is because they simply do not want to wait for the female to be big enough, and grow into a female size and weight, on a healthy timeline. They want the female to fit into THEIR breeding plans. Plain and simple. I see it more and more these days, and it is sickening.

Pushers will say what they do is natural, while cranking up the hot side of the cage to 1000 degrees, resulting in the metabolism of the snake, to be manually manipulated to go a million miles an hour, thus resulting in snakes that do grow faster somewhat. It is simply manipulating their natural instinct of survival to eat at most any given opportunity, while giving pushers a false sense of security.

Do snakes have this in nature? Sure...haven't you tripped over the extension cords, plugged into the heat tape, that they have installed undergound....( snicker )..HAHA!!! ( rim shot...) Kidding!

But yea, pushing females in captivity, in a insulting area of space we call a snake home ( box ), vs. what they have out in nature, by way of unlimited range of area, is of course, IMO, not healthy. Obesity can happen all too quickly, if we are not careful, and that also can hurt the animal as well.

What is this, a competition, to see who gets the eggs the quickest? Please!!

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Genesis 1:1

How did this thread turn into power feeding and whatever a "pusher" is? A lady asked what a 5 month old cornsnake should be feeding on. I gave answers. Apparently no one paid attention to the word HUSBANDRY and METABOLISM. The female I had breed at 9 months was an example not the norm.
If you guys want to feed, grow, and breed on a slow scale, go for it.

I'm the ugliest lady you'd ever want to see.
That aside, it turned into a thread about pushers when you advocated power feeding your snakes and breeding them too early. We know what HUSBANDRY means, and we all now no that you don't practice it properly. We also know what METABOLISM is and now know that you manipulate it in your snakes.
We chose to keep and breed healthy snakes, you like to powerfeed and overbreed yours. Like you said, the choice is ours, we choose to do what's best for the snake.
Asking a question of what a yearling corn snake should eat was best answered by those who take care of their snakes in a sensible and healthy matter.
The question wasn't "What kind of prey items can I give my grossly over-fed cornsnake when it gets to a year old, even if I have grossly shortened its life span by breeding it at 9 months old"
Most breeders wait until the snake is at least 3 to 4 years old. Breeding one at 9 months is absolutely disgusting.

I'm the ugliest lady you'd ever want to see.
That aside, it turned into a thread about pushers when you advocated power feeding your snakes and breeding them too early.
1: There's no such thing as power feeding. Also I gave you an example of one animal. You are dangerously close to slander and libel.
2. Who are "We"?
3. How dare you claim I don't practice proper husbandry. You don't even know me. I've been in the Herpetological hobby for over 25 years! I've produced generations of colubrids, lizards, and boids! I have an acknowledgment for my work in genetics in Kathy Love's book on Cornsnakes. What have you done?
We know what HUSBANDRY means, and we all now no that you don't practice it properly. We also know what METABOLISM is and now know that you manipulate it in your snakes.
4. You don't know [bleep]. Your attack on me proves it. I tried to help you.
We chose to keep and breed healthy snakes, you like to powerfeed and overbreed yours. Like you said, the choice is ours, we choose to do what's best for the snake.
5. Overbreed? You never asked about my breeding techniques.
6. How many species have you bred? How many generations?
Asking a question of what a yearling corn snake should eat was best answered by those who take care of their snakes in a sensible and healthy matter.
7. No it wasn't.
The question wasn't "What kind of prey items can I give my grossly over-fed cornsnake when it gets to a year old, even if I have grossly shortened its life span by breeding it at 9 months old"
8. What the [bleep] are you talking about? Obviously you haven't bred cornsnakes, or anything for that matter. I gave one example trying to show you the metabolic rate of Pantherophis and you're trying to tell me I'm killing a animal?
Most breeders wait until the snake is at least 3 to 4 years old. Breeding one at 9 months is absolutely disgusting.
9. You know ABSOLUTELY nothing about herpetology, husbandry, or breeding.

I'm begging you to tread lightly. I tried answering a feeding question. A rookie feeding question for some one who allegedly claims 30 years reptile knowledge. You took what I said out of context out of your own ignorance.

Cheers,
Ken

I asked about the average corn snake at a year, and explained why that was not a rookie question.
You felt the need to use an overfed snake as an example. How does that help? You claim there is no such thing as power feeding and advocate breeding a snake at 9 months old and then say that you practice proper husbandry. There is obviously no way to get through to you, you know everything. The rest of us on here know nothing. You win.
Thank you to the others who posted on this thread.

Just because you *could* breed that female at 9 months, doesn't mean you should.

Should I have popped out babies when I was 10?

As to power feeding to maximize growth, it is absolutely possible. Hatchlings fed a pinky a week grow slower than hatchlings fed a pinky every 5 days. More nutrients to work with = faster growth. But faster growth is not necessarily healthy growth.

Nature says "grow as fast as you can, breed as fast as you can, you might not live long!"

If those snake die at 5 years old, nature and genetics don't care. The females have already popped out 30 to 60 babies. She's done her work and there's new females to take her place.

Snakes' metabolisms can vary among relatives, much like people.
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JonathanI

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
~Albert Einstein

Thought I would add some info..

I have 2 corns that I got as hatchlings. I have no interest in breeding them, so I did not push them at all. If they displayed signs of hunger, like looking at me waiting for food, then I fed them. Sometimes that would be 2x a week, and other times much less frequently.

It took nearly a year to get them onto fuzzies. These corns are strong and healthy. When I hold either of them, I can feel their muscles working as they push off of my hand. They feel more like a wild snake in that aspect. They are not at all limp like the starved hatchlings at some of the large pet stores.

I raised a Cal king in the same manner. He took 3 yrs to look like an adult, and he still had some growth yet to do. He lived to a very ripe age, over 20, and successfully bred thru year 19.

If you are in no rush, neither do your snakes have to be. But, you should not under-feed. Underfed snakes lack the energy and strength that healthy snakes display.

On the flip side, if you feed your snakes often and provide warm temps to support an aggressive feed schedule, they will grow fast and reproduce often. That is true whether it be captivity or nature. In nature, when times are good and prey is aplenty, snakes will not hold back.

" If you are in no rush, neither do your snakes have to be. But, you should not under-feed. Underfed snakes lack the energy and strength that healthy snakes display. "

Good thoughts and input!!

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Genesis 1:1