Baby Corn Feeding Advice Needed :)

Hello there!
My friend has a recently acquired two month old corn snake that's having a little trouble eating and some advice on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Background: The corn was being fed every five days, eating small fuzzy rats. She's eaten three times and last week on feeding day she regurgitated. Food has been offered to her the past two days (about a week since she regurgitated). She shows interest and strikes at it but gives up after a try or two. How often should food be offered to her if she isnt eating?

Temps: 85 degree hot spot, room temp ambient (about 72)
Humidity: natural room humidity (we're from colorado)

Someone who is experienced with corns will confirm your temps but general rule: do not feed for at least 2 weeks after regurgitate. It hurts them when they do that so they need to heal up. Some people wait at least 3 weeks.

Secondly, what is the weight of the snake? Rat fuzzies sounds huge. Baby snakes should be eating a size no bigger than the diameter of the thickest part of its body. Five days is powerfeeding and unnecessary unless it needs the weight. Every 7 days is enough for a baby. Corns are great eaters and will always want more when they shouldn't.

Please, not trying to be mean and I am glad you are now seeking help, but complete your research before doing anything else with him. Research including the basics on feeding should have been done BEFORE you stuff it with so much food to the point it regurgitated.

A corn snake that young should realistically be on pinkie mice, not fuzzies (and definitely not rat fuzzies). How are you creating the hot spot and how are you measuring temps?

Agree that every 7 days should be sufficient. I aim for 75-80 ambient for our corn with a 84-85 degree hot spot.

The regurgitation could be due to feeding too large of a prey item, feeding too frequently, AND/OR too cool of an ambient temperature.

I totally mistyped, I meant to say PINKY rats.

I think the temperatures sound fine. My two 16 year old corns have a low temp of 72-75F with a basking spot with uth ranging 85-87F.

I would agree that a 2 month old snake shouldn’t be offered food more than once every 7 days. This allows them time to eat, digest, and let their system rest before the next meal. For most snakes, digestion is work and they need a break in between. At 2 months of age, it should be fed fuzzy (or maybe hopper) mice at the largest, not much larger than the widest point of the snake. Assuming the rat fuzzies are anywhere near the size of the ones at my local shop (1-2 inches), that would be a massive meal, especially offered that often. I’d recommend waiting at least 2 weeks before offering again, with an appropriately sized meal.

My adults get 2 adult mice every two weeks. They were started weekly on pinkies, moving up to fuzzies, hoppers, then adult mice as they aged. After the first year to year and a half, they were switched to feeding every two weeks. Most corns will gorge themselves, eating as much as is offered, but that isn’t particularly healthy for them. Excessive feeding will cause health issues and shorten their life span. Their overall body shape should be lean with good muscle tone, roughly squared off like a loaf of bread.

***Just saw your correction on rat pinks, which are still too large in my opinion.

Also, corns are one of those snakes that a lot of people keep on mice rather than switch to rats.

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Originally Posted by WhompingWillow

Also, corns are one of those snakes that a lot of people keep on mice rather than switch to rats.

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^ totally agree.

@OP: please stick to mice for your corn; rats are not natural to their diet. you can totally feed rats, as i have with my own corn, but they do perfectly well on mice.

2 month old corn should be on pinkie mice every 5-7 days.

He/she can eat mice their entire life.

2 week wait after regurgitation, minimum.

As the others have said the baby should be eating mice pinks not rat pinks. I just threw the smallest rat pink I could find on the scale and it weighed in at 5g. I have some 3 month old baby corns and they weighed in at 13.6g, 13.8g and 15.6g. That would equate to a meal that is roughly 33% of the snakes weight.

Of course this is assuming we are talking norway rats and not african soft furs rats. Soft fur rat pinks seems to be on par with several day old mouse pinks.

I typically feed mine every 5 days until they get on double mouse pinks, at which point they go to every 7 days. I've had baby corns go well over a month without feeding so don't worry about making it skip a week because it regurged.

Corn snakes start out quite small and eat pinky mice...even at 2 months of age, it would not be eating anything bigger than a crew (a small fuzzy) mouse-
never a hopper! :O And not rat pinks, they are much bigger. No wonder this snake regurgitated. Slow down, it's not a ball python. Feed once a week until
they grow into larger prey, & then gradually lengthen the time between meals. After a regurge, don't feed for 2 weeks...if you feed again before they've had
a chance to replenish their digestive enzymes, they'll just hurl again & can actually die of dehydration sooner than you might think from this process, so please
let the little one rest now.

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

.... you can totally feed rats, as i have with my own corn, but they do perfectly well on mice.

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This is true when the corn snake is MUCH bigger...but you'd not want to feed any rat that is bigger than the size mouse it should be
eating. So if it's eating a mouse hopper, you could substitute a large rat pink, & so on. It really makes the most sense to keep corn
snakes on mice- as adult snakes, the right size meal is an adult mouse.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Corn snakes start out quite small and eat pinky mice...even at 2 months of age, it would not be eating anything bigger than a crew (a small fuzzy) mouse-
never a hopper! :O .

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I should have clarified size on hopper better. I’m visualizing the hoppers I’m getting for my lemon blast, which are no where near the size I get in my f/t orders. The live hoppers are the same size as the f/t fuzzies I previously ordered for my juvenile corn, which would be a good sized meal, but not huge. That’s why I also mentioned nothing much larger than the widest point of the snake.

I think everybody else beat me to it, but that snake is being fed meals about 3x what it should be eating.

Wait AT LEAST two weeks after a regurge before offering again, then offer weekly.

Temps aren't TOO low, but could come up a few degrees as well.

Tell your friend to do some research, cause this poor snake won't last long on the path it's on.

I have a corn who is just now hitting 4 months old and took a small size fuzzy mouse (5g) for the first time this week on his new 7 day schedule (until now he's been eating 2x pinky mice @4g every 5 days or building up to that amount of food from 1g). I can't imagine him even successfully swallowing a rat pinky, much less digesting one. He's my second corn I've had since 1-1.5 months old and both grew pretty quickly as-is, but nowhere near enough to get to a rat pink by 2 months.

OP, can you give us a weight of this corn snake? Are you certain about the age?

Something seems fishy to me.. snakes can eat shockingly large meals, but this seems a bit too extreme to have been successful twice before a regurge...

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Originally Posted by craigafrechette

...Temps aren't TOO low, but could come up a few degrees as well....

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Actually the OP's temps. are about the only thing that sounds right...and my 5 corn snakes just voted on that...;)

Corn snakes are not ball pythons...they thrive with far less heat than BPs, & over-heating them is harmful. They should always have an optional warm corner of their
cage (I prefer to use UTH with a hide over it, along with at least one hide on the unheated side of cage); my ambient room temps. vary by the season from 80* in the
summer to 70* in the winter, and regardless of the season, they are most often on the cool sides of their cages, thermo-regulating & then using the UTH as needed.
They also enjoy a humid hide with damp sphagnum moss inside...on the unheated side as well.

But something seems amiss about the snake's size & age, or the prey being offered. :confusd:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Actually the OP's temps. are about the only thing that sounds right...and my 5 corn snakes just voted on that...;)

Corn snakes are not ball pythons...they thrive with far less heat than BPs, & over-heating them is harmful. They should always have an optional warm corner of their
cage (I prefer to use UTH with a hide over it, along with at least one hide on the unheated side of cage); my ambient room temps. vary by the season from 80* in the
summer to 70* in the winter, and regardless of the season, they are most often on the cool sides of their cages, thermo-regulating & then using the UTH as needed.
They also enjoy a humid hide with damp sphagnum moss inside...on the unheated side as well.

But something seems amiss about the snake's size & age, or the prey being offered. :confusd:

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I don't think they're dangerously low, by any means, but I do feel that they could come up just a few degrees. I've gotten out of keeping corns, they just don't do it for me, but in the past I always kept them a few degrees higher than what OP posted with success.

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Originally Posted by craigafrechette

I don't think they're dangerously low, by any means, but I do feel that they could come up just a few degrees. I've gotten out of keeping corns, they just don't do it for me, but in the past I always kept them a few degrees higher than what OP posted with success.

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I think their hot spot temp is fine ~85. I do aim for around 75 for cool/ambient temps, so I can see why you want to say to raise it some. Mine have shown no difference in behavior down to 72 for a week or two, so I don't think it is low enough to be an issue as long as the snake is moving to the warm end for digestion/is no sitting at 72 to digest. (Short term low temps were due to a delay by us humans swapping over to heat from A/C)

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Originally Posted by pretends2bnormal

I think their hot spot temp is fine ~85. I do aim for around 75 for cool/ambient temps, so I can see why you want to say to raise it some. Mine have shown no difference in behavior down to 72 for a week or two, so I don't think it is low enough to be an issue as long as the snake is moving to the warm end for digestion/is no sitting at 72 to digest. (Short term low temps were due to a delay by us humans swapping over to heat from A/C)

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That's what I was getting at...72-75* ambient is fine (& so is 80* in summer) but I was concerned about raising the hot spot above 85*. They'd probably avoid it, &
not get the warmth needed.

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Originally Posted by pretends2bnormal

I think their hot spot temp is fine ~85. I do aim for around 75 for cool/ambient temps, so I can see why you want to say to raise it some. Mine have shown no difference in behavior down to 72 for a week or two, so I don't think it is low enough to be an issue as long as the snake is moving to the warm end for digestion/is no sitting at 72 to digest. (Short term low temps were due to a delay by us humans swapping over to heat from A/C)

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

That's what I was getting at...72-75* ambient is fine (& so is 80* in summer) but I was concerned about raising the hot spot above 85*. They'd probably avoid it, &
not get the warmth needed.

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I agree that the warm side isn't far off. I typically shot for 87-88.

I love corn snakes. Partly because I found them fairly easy to breed, but they have plenty of other good qualities.

While my preference is to feed baby corns appropriate sized mice, my first corn snake was a six month old that had eaten about three mice in her entire life. She was starving herself to death until offered a pinkie rat. She grew up and bred for me on a rat diet. As I recall, she was never fed more than once in seven days, though. And my preference is to turn off the heat and let the temperature fall to room temperature at night, though that shouldn't make a huge difference.

I wonder if the OP's snake is using the hot spot. Factors like badly place hiding boxes might keep it in a cooler part of the cage. Or might the snake be somewhat dehydrated because it isn't using the water bowl properly? Or the snake might be trying to go into brumation. Hard to say what the exact problem is.

Good luck.