Crickets for corn snakes?? (at Petco)

First, let me preface this by saying that our local Petco is a decent one... they don't carry many reptiles (mostly due to restrictions within city limits), but the animals they do have are generally well cared for. Of course I always check out the reptile aisle, and haven't seen anything troublesome until now. Usually they just have a few small colubrids, leopard geckos & beardies - all healthy in appearance with proper housing, and the same goes for their rodents and birds.

Now for my question... when I was at this Petco yesterday getting feeder mice, I went to see what they had in reptiles. They had a (very cute!) baby corn by his/herself, with water and CRICKETS. :weirdface There were only a few small ones jumping around, but clearly too many to have gotten in there by accident. I've only had BPs thus far, but was under the impression that corn snakes - no matter how small - primarily eat rodents. This one was extremely tiny, although I assume large enough to take a pinky mouse. Right?

If this was a big no-no, I'll tell the salesperson who owns reptiles... she only works the register, so probably doesn't get much time to observe the in-store animals. I've gotten quite friendly with her over the last few years, and I'm sure she would WANT to know if anything's wrong. The floor clerks are semi-clueless about snakes, so I rely on this cashier for most of my questions/concerns. ;) TIA for your replies, since I don't want to say anything if I'm wrong about this.

Cornsnakes are not insectivorous so having live crickets within it's enclosure is a big no no. Crickets could actually end up feeding on the live snake when they get hungry and are not provided with food. There are snakes that eat insects like rough green snakes so maybe they stuck the cornsnake in the wrong enclosure but it being Petco it would not surprise me one bit if they actually thought that cornsnakes ate insects.
HTH

That's exactly what I thought. :cool: Thanks for the response! I'll mention it next time I'm there...

not a big deal. in the wild, they would eat anything they could grab.

from the link:
"Corns are most active at night or in the hours of dawn and dusk (crepuscular). While they are primarily ground-dwellers, some are semi-arboreal. While the Elaphes feed on everything ranging from fish to frogs to rodents to mammals, wild Corns start off feeding on small invertebrates and vertebrates, such as crickets"

http://www.anapsid.org/corn.html

I'm 100% sure in the wild that baby corns eat insects when given the opportunity. They aren't all getting their food by tracking down nests of mice for a nice juicy pinky.

Huh... that's interesting! I guess I won't say anything, unless it seems like they aren't healthy - but why would a pet store, which has plenty of access to mice, offer crickets instead? Maybe they thought the snake was too small for even a pinky?

PetCo's policy is to feed baby corn snakes pinkies once a week. My guess is either the crickets climbed in there from another enclosure (those enclosures generally have small gaps in them, making it easy for crickets to do this) or someone accidentally put the crickets in there while doing morning feedings. I'd mention it to a manager. It wouldn't surprise me if an employee was dropping crickets in their enclosure who didn't know any better.

From my past experience most pet stores and their employees (not all) are in the buisiness of selling animals and the best care for the animal is usually backburnered to making them look attractive and sellable

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

I'm 100% sure in the wild that baby corns eat insects when given the opportunity. They aren't all getting their food by tracking down nests of mice for a nice juicy pinky.

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And I'm 100% sure they do NOT... I've been breeding corns for 20 years and I have NEVER seen a baby corn take any kind of insect whatsoever. These rumors got started because in analyzing the stomach contents of wild corns insect parts were found. The reason for this finding is because some of the animals that corn snakes DO eat, like lizards or tree frogs or even rodents DO eat insects and so the snake will ingest whatever is in the stomach of their prey. Couple that with the fact that one of the most printed out corn snake care sheets is on Melissa Kaplans site where she states in there if your baby corn will not take pinky mice you may try insects. Melissa Kaplan has VERY little if ANY experience with corn snakes. And despite the fact that MANY MANY prominent corn snake breeders have repeatedly asked her to change her care sheet, she has refused to do so.

Not only do baby corn snakes NOT eat insects voluntarily, but the hard chitinous exoskeleton may even be injurious and cause impaction.

Please do NOT feed insects to your corn snakes.

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Originally Posted by Lucas339

not a big deal. in the wild, they would eat anything they could grab.

from the link:
"Corns are most active at night or in the hours of dawn and dusk (crepuscular). While they are primarily ground-dwellers, some are semi-arboreal. While the Elaphes feed on everything ranging from fish to frogs to rodents to mammals, wild Corns start off feeding on small invertebrates and vertebrates, such as crickets"

http://www.anapsid.org/corn.html

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Lucas, melissa crapland is a load of manure.

You cannot rely on her information to be valid or up to date. She plagiarized, poorly, many people when she started up and doesn't really know much about anything other than peta is great.

I've never in all the years I've kept and bred corns, heard of one single one that ate a cricket. I've been doing longer than you've been alive, most likely.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

And I'm 100% sure they do NOT... I've been breeding corns for 20 years and I have NEVER seen a baby corn take any kind of insect whatsoever.

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Ok you have me convinced. I had never considered the stomach contents issue, but that makes perfect sense!!

I've always assumed many North American colubrids are pretty flexible in their dietary capabilities, and aren't tied down to a handful of prey species. Snakes are opportunistic feeders, and have to be even more opportunistic as hatchlings to stand a chance at survival. Just as well, north american colubrids, and corn snakes especially, have an extraordinary flexibility in habitat tolerance. This SHOULD translate into at least more-flexible-than-usual dietary tolerance.

in my pet store (mom n pop store), there *SOMETIMES* are crickets in the snake enclosure, but ONLY until we notice and remove them. we order in about 8,000 crickets per week, and let me tell you, not all 8,000 of them make it into reptile bellies!

so it is possible that the crickets got in there by mistake/cricket mischief, so i would go ahead and tell somebody who is working there, because yes, the crickets can decide to feed on the snake if they wanted to.

that's why we check on all the animals a couple times a day, to make sure nothing is going wrong.

Its no accident they are in there. I've seen it in numerous different PetCos and even overheard one of the sales people telling someone who was buying a baby, "Feed it two small crickets a week." Each time I've brought it up to the manager of the store, each time I go back its still the same situation. This has got to be a bigger problem than individual stores, someone is telling them to do the wrong thing.

Thanks for all the replies! It looks like the consensus is that corns should NOT have crickets in their enclosure, so I will tell somebody next time I'm there... probably that cashier I mentioned, as she knows more than their stupid (and fairly rude) manager. :cool:

Btw, I'm thinking of getting a corn snake soon - but not from Petco, LOL. If I can't find one at the GOOD local shops (EB Vivarium, Coastside Critters, etc), I'll just go through an online breeder. Looking at the available corns on VMSHerps site now, since I was happy with the leos I got from them.

I actually know a few people around here who feed some of the small corns and ratsnakes crickets. I always thought it was kind of strange.

My suggestion is to definitely go through an online breeder....I can point you in the direction of some good ones if you're interested!

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Originally Posted by Calift

My suggestion is to definitely go through an online breeder....I can point you in the direction of some good ones if you're interested!

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For sure! I've been contacting a few through Fauna & Kingsnake, but so far nothing (either no responses or they're sold out). After looking at the different morphs available, I'm most interested in the reverse Okeetee - actually saw an Aztec-pattern reverse Okeetee on Fauna, but still waiting to hear back from the email I sent. So yeah, I wouldn't mind a referral or two... ;)

Btw, I did see a few corns at the mall's pet shop yesterday, but they were as sad and overpriced ($69.99) as expected... that store actually ticks me off MUCH more than Petco/Petsmart, since they sell puppies that are obviously from puppy mills. :mad:

Their reptiles didn't look much better, especially the two ball pythons - housed together without a single hide, stuck shed on one, the other was soaking in its water dish, and there was a dried poop in the corner. And this store has been in business for 30 years, with supposedly a "Best of the Bay" award??? :weirdface I won't name them, in case that could get me in trouble, but I've been wanting them to be gone for years.