another feeding question

[halfwaynowhere]

I got my corn snake a few weeks ago. She's a yearling, but was fed a maintenance diet, so she's still fairly small. As soon as i got her, I started feeding her larger fuzzies, one a week. It makes a nice bulge in her belly, so it seems appropriately sized. I fed her on sunday (2 days ago). I was holding her today, and she opened her mouth real wide and started to try to eat my knuckle. So it seems like she's hungry again.
She's too small for hoppers. So I'm thinking of giving her two fuzzies, but I'm worried that might be too much.
I don't know her weight, but she's 20 inches long, and slim, but not underweight or anything.

[Argentra]

Sounds like one of my girls. Not only was she on a maintenance diet for almost a year at the breeders, but she's a slow grower as well.

The best thing to do is to give yours one good size fuzzy every 5 days. 5 day feeding intervals are great for youngsters, and it's still not 'powerfeeding'. I fed my girl her small fuzz last night and she was searching for more, so I gave her another and she nailed it. Now I know to up the fuzzy size (or give her two, since the fuzzies are FT).

[halfwaynowhere]

but, 5 day feedings means i have to make extra trips out...
I work in petstores on weekends, and usually just pick up my feeders then... saves on gas, although the feeders are more expensive that way... But I guess I can make my extra trips, i'll save money on feeders, although i'll be using more gas that way. oh well. whatever's best for my snakeys.

[Argentra]

I would suggest, then, that you look into frozen/thawed. Corns are really good about converting to it, even from live, and it's a lot cheaper than getting them from a petstore!
Just make sure you thaw the prey completely and warm it up right before offering and they should go right for it...unless you have the rare picky corn.

[halfwaynowhere]

oh, i've been feeding her f/t. But I can't buy more than one at a time, because my dad can't know that I have snakes. My mom lets me have them as long as my dad never finds out. And he never comes in my room, so that never happens. but if he sees dead mice in the freezer, that will be a problem. So I've just been getting one at a time...

[Argentra]

Hmm... what about a mini fridge? You could keep that in your room turned up high and keep the rodents in there with a paper bag around the plastic bags (just in case). That way you could get a pack of, say, 25 and it would just look like some frozen package.

I'm pretty good at coming up with ways to hide things.

Oh, and BTW, those frozen rodents sold at Petco and Petsmart are horrible!! Don't buy them unless it's your ONLY food source! I used to work at Petsmart and used to use those rodents since they were 'conveniently' packed individually. They're frozen incorrectly...possibly even re-frozen, are filthy and stink even while still cold indicating improper methods. Bad juju.

[anendeloflorien]

Oh, and BTW, those frozen rodents sold at Petco and Petsmart are horrible!! Don't buy them unless it's your ONLY food source! I used to work at Petsmart and used to use those rodents since they were 'conveniently' packed individually. They're frozen incorrectly...possibly even re-frozen, are filthy and stink even while still cold indicating improper methods. Bad juju.

Not to mention the cost! I got some of the f/t from petco and they were horrible !