Doesn't know how to kill?

I just fed Scout (my baby corn) his first live pinkie mouse, and it appears he's strike-challenged. He usually gets f/t, but the store didn't have any, so I just grabbed a baby from my breeder mouse tank. Figured it was pointless to freeze before feeding, and I thought he might like getting a live squirmer for once!

Well, needless to say, he was very confused by the whole thing. :shrugs: He approached the mouse and tried to bite it, the way he usually does with the thawed pinkies... it surprised him when the food moved, but he just kept trying to bite it. Finally he put his whole mouth over the poor mouse's head, and just held there until it stopped moving - and then proceeded to swallow it. My new adult corn ate two live mice tonight as well, but had NO problem with the strike & coil... so is Scout challenged, or is this typical of young corns?

Regardless, I think we'll stick with f/t from now on, but I was just curious about this issue. I've only had Ball Pythons until getting Scout last month, and BPs are excellent at the killing part. Anyone else have a corn that won't strike?

I haven't experienced that kind of thing, but I'd guess it's pretty typical of a corn who's never eaten a living thing before to be confused... =P

His method of "killing" it sounds about right, though. I've only had to feed live to two of my hatchlings, once each, and both of them grabbed it by the head, pinned it, and started swallowing once it slowed down. I don't think either of them waited for it to be fully still/quiet (let alone dead), though... (The squeaks were terrifying!)

I actually noticed, recently, that none of my hatchlings started constricting their prey until they hit the 15 gram mark and skipped a feeding day (due to my forgetfulness).

Think about if you got a burger form the same place every week. Then, one day out of nowhere, that burger got up and ran away when you tried to bite into it! I'd be pretty confused too. He'll get the hang of it if you keep feeding live, but of course once they're on live they're a pain to get off of it sometimes, so would you rather have a good eater or a great killer?

None of mine have ever constricted until they got onto fuzzies.

I'm still fairly new to corns, and the BPs are never small enough for pinkies... so this is all very interesting! I love that Scout (and hopefully the new girl) eats f/t, and will stick with that for the time being - even though I still have to do live for my picky pythons.

Yep - sounds about right. One of the reasons I don't like feeding live. If you need to do that again, just kill the pinkie yourself before offering it. That way the mouse doesn't suffer unnecessarily (and it can take a long time) and snakie doesn't get into bad live feeding habits.

Shiari said:

None of mine have ever constricted until they got onto fuzzies.

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Mine too
Very rarely will mine constrict a live pinkie. Usually they just swallow them alive. Hence why f/t is suggested. Or as Bitsy put it, put the mouse down first. Sometimes a non feeder will only take to live and you have to suffer through until you get them to switch.

My worst one with live was when the hatchling decided to eat it butt-first without constricting. That frantic squeaking seemed to go on for ages. Never again. *shudder*

bitsy said:

My worst one with live was when the hatchling decided to eat it butt-first without constricting. That frantic squeaking seemed to go on for ages. Never again. *shudder*

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Ugh... poor mousie. Luckily Scout's live pinkie seemed to die (or at least go unconscious) pretty quickly, but we'll definitely stick with live from now on! I actually did think of pre-killing the pinkie, but couldn't figure out how to do that - aside from freezing.

Oops - I meant that we'll stick with FROZEN from now on.

I agree that my snakes didn't start striking until fuzzies, but only one of them actually constricts her mouse to "death" before eating. The other sort of tries to but... just end up undulating a lot and then swallowing it. XD

Putting a pinkie down can be tough for the faint of heart. Just take a knife right behind the head where the spinal cord would be and slice quick and almost all the way through. Its as quick as its going to get.