Thin/Weak Corn Snake

[Jay_Bunny]

I work at Petsmart and every now and then we get a little corn snake baby that won't eat. This time it is a little snow corn. He arrived on 8/6 and has never had a meal. He is getting thinner everyday and finally he was taken to the vet last week. I had told my manager that the snake needed to be force fed or tube-fed. The only thing the vet did was prescribe metronidazole and instructed us to give the snake .1ml of it every day. They also told us to feed smaller sized pinkies. Our pinkies for store use come in bags of 50 and most of the pinkies are a few days old so are not all that tiny. I did find one pinkie out of the whole bag that was small enough but even after putting the pinkie in to the snake's throat, he would not swallow it down.

So on Saturday I took a pinkie and cut it up into a paste, mixed it with a little water and with a little work I was able to syringe feed the little corn .1ml of the pinkie "soup". I'm not sure how fast he would have digested this (since it was a paste) but on Sunday evening I did find a small amount of poop (two dots worth) and some urates in the corner of his enclosure. (He's on paper towels so we can keep track) On Sunday I repeated the process and was able to get him to eat .15ml of pinkie "soup". I weighed him after his meal and he is 5g. How often should I feed him his soup?

We already lost one corn snake to this kind of thing (starved to death) and I'm tired of my co-workers and management not stepping up and getting the animals what they need so I'm kind of taking things into my own hands here. Any advice on helping this little snake survive and grow would be great. I'd hate to see him follow the same path as the other one who died. My pet care manager will not allow me to bring in tube feeding supplies as the force feeding and tube feeding should only be done by veterinarian (well the vets are stupid) but if I'm using what we have on hand I don't think its against the rules. The syringe goes back into his throat a bit, so I'm not getting any in his windpipe.

[Blue Apple Herps]

You can try giving him pinky heads if he's too small for regular pinkies.

[Jay_Bunny]

We also tried pinky heads twice. How often should I feed him the pinky soup? I go into work later today and tomorrow then I'm off for a week. Should I try feeding him the soup either today or tomorrow? No one else that works there will syringe feed him.

[jarradw]

If you werent so far away I would drive down there and get the poor guy just to help out I am up in MD though. My corn was very little when I got him and ended up doing the pinky head thing every other day for a few weeks until he was able to take a whole one then backed it off to a once a week feeding. He didnt always take it but just stuck with it and he pulled through and is now a beautiful 4 ft snow corn

[Rorschach]

Good for you for helping the little one out. I would recommend trying to feed the 'soup' every 4 days or so. Others may say more or less, but just my opinion.

Good luck to you

[Jay_Bunny]

When I got to work yesterday there was more urate and poop on his paper towel. I fed him another .15ml of the "soup". He is more active than he was a few days ago. I guess its from the addition of calories. So in the past 3 days he's eaten 0.4ml of pinkie soup. I'm going to check on him again today. I won't feed him any soup today since he's already had too much stress the past 3 days. I want to give him a break. I showed my pet care manager how I was feeding him and pre-made a few mls of the soup for him to feed to the snake while I'm gone for the week. I believe he plans on feeding him every 2-3days while I'm gone.

I was thinking of keeping the snake on this soup diet until he begins to gain some weight. Perhaps when he hits 6 or 7g I might try giving him a pinky head.

[wstphal]

Sounds about right. Kathy Love tube feeds ground up ferret food mixed with water to make "soup". Every 4-6 days IIRC. Good luck getting this little guy going! Once he gets to 4-5 gms I agree with pink heads.

[Jay_Bunny]

I have not weighed him recently but he has been getting soup every few days. He's pooping and passing urates so we are hoping he will start gaining some weight soon. The last part of his body is not as wrinkly as it was in the beginning so I'm hoping that is because he is growing. He's eaten the equivalent of one pinky so far so he's had one complete meal over the course of 2 weeks.

[Jay_Bunny]

Checked on the tiny corn tonight. The baby weighs 4g now. He's pooping and passing urates about 2 days after each feeding. I'm chopping the pink into a paste and diluting it with water aso I can use it with a small syringe. I've gotten him up to eating. 5ml of the puree. It's not diluted a lot. Only a little. Should I try feeding him more?

[Jay_Bunny]

That is supposed to be 0.5ml not 5.