Feeding Your Corn Snake

In the wild, corn snakes will eat rodents, small lizards and the occasional egg. A captive snake can survive perfectly happily on a diet of raw mice. These can be purchased from most reptile pet shops and can be ordered in bulk online from several websites. The purpose of this article is to let you know how much to feed your snakes and how to get fussy eaters eating.

Hatchlings

Newborn hatchlings (neonates) are very small and must be fed on day-old pinky mice. Pinkies are very young mice, only a few days old and with no fur. From an early age corns should be fed in a separate container to their regular home as this will stop them nipping at you every time you open the cage.

Hatchlings should be fed twice a week to ensure that they grow up to be big and healthy snakes. You should feed one small pinky on Wednesday and another on Saturday. A guideline for snakes of all sizes is that food items should not be more than 1.5 times the width of the thickest part of their body. You should not hold your snakes for at least forty-eight hours after feeding. On this schedule there will not be much time at all for handling. If you wish you can feed one item per week and have time for handling but it will take much longer for your snake to grow. If the only pinkies you can find are too big cut the heads off these and feed your snakes two at each sitting.

Yearling and Adults

As your snake grows, so will the size of its food. After pinkies, the next size up is fuzzies (small mice with a small amount of fur), then hoppers (slightly larger) then small adults and finally large adults. All you need to remember is the rule mentioned before; prey items should never be more than 1.5 times the width of the thickest part of your snake.

When you move up to fuzzies, you can start offering one food item per week. However, if you would prefer, you may offer two items on separate days such as on Wednesday and Saturday. Once adulthood has been reached and corns are eating adult mice, only one item of food should be offered each week as it is possible to overfeed corns.

Sometimes snakes refuse to eat for one reason or another. Royal pythons are infamous for being bad eaters. Always remember that snakes can go several months without eating and be perfectly healthy. You shouldn't worry about your pet if it refuses meals for a few weeks. Appetites regularly wane when shedding time comes around but then reappear with a vengeance afterwards. If you are seriously worried about your snake, take it to a vet with reptile experience.

Feeding Problems and Solutions

Corns sometimes refuse to eat for no obvious reason. The species is generally a good eater but there are exceptions to every rule. Occasionally you will come across a corn that just will not eat. This is most common with hatchlings but some adults go through spells of fasting as well.

The reason may be stress. If you have just purchased a corn of any age, you should leave it alone in its tank for one or two weeks and only disturb it to change the water. If you don't give it time to settle it then it may not eat and not survive. Stress can occur if two snakes are housed together, which should never be done unless you are willing to take the risks.

Now on to some methods of getting corns to eat.

• Wiggle the mouse in front of the snake. If you don't already, make sure you use forceps and the snake may lunge at your hand. This method works by fooling the snake into thinking that the mouse is still alive.
• Cut the top of the head of the mouse and then try feeding it to snakes. This may sound disgusting but the smell of blood often gets a snake's instincts going. This method is called "braining".
• Warm up a mouse in a cup or bowl of warm (not hot) water then brain it and wiggle it in front of the snake. This method works by combining the two methods above and warming up the mouse so the snake thinks it's alive.
• You can buy special sprays that make the mouse smell of lizards. Corns sometimes eat lizards in the wild so this is well worth a try. If you can't find the spray, you can buy a frozen lizard and rub it on to the mouse.
• Larger corns can eat the heads of anoles. If your snake accepts, keep feeding it these for a while. After several feedings, you can just wrap a mouse in an anole's skin and feed it to your snake. Then you can gradually decrease the amount of skin until the mouse is pure.
• Another method is putting the snake in quite a small enclosure overnight with a small food item that has been brained. If they are left well alone and undisturbed then the mouse may well have gone by morning.
• The last resort is force-feeding. This means opening the snake's mouth by hand and pushing the mouse inside with your fingers. If you feel you have to attempt this then you must get someone experienced to show you how to do it or else you might seriously harm your pet. Force-feeding is very stressful for you and your snake so should be avoided if at all possible.

Article by Neil