Something's wrong...!

[MedusasOwl]

No sooner than I respond to my intro post, I look up to find Falkor out of his hide and acting very strange! I saw something sticking out of his mouth and scooped him to investigate... what IS this? I'm so worried!





We fed him last on Sunday, 2 pinkies, which he'd been gobbling up fine before now... is that a regurgitated leg or something? I put him back and he rubbed it free (or swallowed it, I couldn't find it), then went and hid back in his hide... He was making swallowy movements with his mouth before he vanished... I'm really scared, and wondering if he needs to join us on our cat's vet trip Sat... (our doctor treats exotics too).

Was maybe something wrong with the pinkies? Maybe they were in the freezer too long? We got 50 of them at a time... Ack... the timing is just spectacular... *frets* Help?

[MedusasOwl]

He's doing his rounds and acting normal now... which is helping me calm down, sorry about the panicked post.

I'm thinking it was a partial regurg which he swallowed down again... Maybe wait a few extra days and take it back down to one pinkie..? Poor little guy nearly gave me a heart attack..

[TekWarren]

I have never worked with corns but you may not want to feed 2 pinks per feeding. With tiny snakes like that...I feed my hatchling children's python which are VERY small when they are born only one pink per feeding but I feed about every 4-5 days as per a suggestion from someon on this forum (Kara). Maybe with corns its ok I don't know just a suggestion.

[wendyhoo9]

Do you know how big your little one is? I have two corns one is the slowest grower ever and weighs in at 13g (I got her in early August and she weighed 10g). Her largest circumference is probably a little over 1 cm. She only gets one pinky per feeding (a little over an inch long), as she is just too small at her largest girth to accept more than that. I also have another 05 hatchling that I got at 20g in Sept and now weighs in at 26g. She's a little under 2 cm at her largest point and takes two pinkies that are around an inch and a half long. Sorry, I never thought to weigh the little pinkies but maybe I’ll do it tonight since it’s feeding night.



Both of my hatchlings eat regularly for me but my big girl has a killer feeding response and would eat more if I let her. Both have regurged once on me, both due to incorrect temps I believe, but have since been great. Their regurges were smelly, shiny, little pink, deposits and were the same size as their food had been.

If you’re concerned you could certainly ask your vet and describe what you saw (as well as bring in your pics!) and ask their opinion. Good luck with the little one!

[frankykeno]

If you can't get hard copy prints of that one pic (really quite a good clear one) to how your vet, you might want to phone him/her and get an email address. I know my vet clinic has an address as well as each vet that works there. They won't usually diagnose from an email, but it would at least help for the vet to have that picture available if you have to take your corn in at some point.


~~Jo~~

[MedusasOwl]

Our printer is pretty sad, but I may just take the camera with to the vet Sat.

Falkor is around 16 inches long, but I have no idea how much he weighs or his exact girth. I am definantly switching back to one pinky though. We only upped it because after a while with one the bulge was barely noticable at all and he moved around searchingly as if he wanted more. So we offered him a second and he ate like it was going out of style. He's done this happily for 2 or 3 weeks now, but I'd *much* rather play it safe. Most of the caresheets I've read have said to eyeball it as far as when to up the size, which I haven't found to be very helpful.

It could also be the temp though, with December the temp in our apartment suddenly dropped and I turned up the rheostat to try to compensate. This was right around his last feed, and the gradiant isn't doing it's lovely perfect 75-85. Instead it's being 70-90, and I'm not sure how to bring the cool side up while bringing the warm side down. Especially since one of our rabbits keeps trying to overheat when I turn up the heat in our home to 75. It also doesn't help that Falkor snubs his "warm" hide for the bigger one in the middle.

So we're without question going to switch back to one pink, and as far as his temp gradiant... any suggestions on how to make this better? This is our first winter with a herp in the house!

[MedusasOwl]

Just an update.. Falkor is acting fine and healthy, and gobbled up a single pink this evening like a happy little piggy. Whew! Thanks again! First time he'd ever done anything unusual so I kind of freaked out there.

[Bev]

i think some corns just have sensitive tummys too, one of my lil uns will sometimes try an regurge after meal when touched, even if its been a couple of days.

she prefers to digest slowly and stays on the cool side or in the middle, only ventureing to the warm hid occasionally, whereas my other 2 corns use the warm hides to digest in, recently she has discovered the joy of the gecko's red bulb and as the vivs are next to each other and are glass she curls up on her lil log which is quite big and is almost touching the glass right by the bulb, safe cos the bulb is in the next viv but nice an toasty lol, cute to look at too.

[Lobo_Reptiles]

After the bump in Icelos started to not be noticeable anymore I moved him up to fuzzy mice. He does awesome with them now. Maybe instead of 2 pinks try one fuzzy next time.

[MedusasOwl]

she prefers to digest slowly and stays on the cool side or in the middle, only ventureing to the warm hid occasionally, whereas my other 2 corns use the warm hides to digest in, recently she has discovered the joy of the gecko's red bulb and as the vivs are next to each other and are glass she curls up on her lil log which is quite big and is almost touching the glass right by the bulb, safe cos the bulb is in the next viv but nice an toasty lol, cute to look at too.

Oh good, than it isn't just Falkor! He completely ignores his warm hide, he's snubbed it for the more expensive hide in the middle of his tank. I couldn't figure out why he doesn't go in there to digest. Just an odd sort of preference I guess. That is too cute about the bulb. They have such odd little personalities, don't they?

After the bump in Icelos started to not be noticeable anymore I moved him up to fuzzy mice. He does awesome with them now. Maybe instead of 2 pinks try one fuzzy next time.

We ended up doing almost exactly that. He was on the smallest size pinkies available, and this Sunday instead of two of them we gave him a slightly bigger pinkie that was much more noticable than one of the bitty pinks and less so than two bitty pinks. I think that size'll be perfect for him for now Thank you!