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On Page 22 Of The Cornsnake Manual...

Virago

Virago

New member
There's a picture of a corn eating a rat. That rat must be 2-2 1/2 maybe even 3 times the size of the snake. Am I wrong? Is that the right size prey for that size corn???
 
As far as im aware the prey of a corn snake, usually a mouse should be at the most 1 1/2 times the width of the snake. This is for adult snakes. I havent seen the page you are talking about but it does sound a bit large!
 
I'm familiar with the page - the caption even says that the rat is at the upper end of the snake's range for prey size. But you also have to consider that the rat seems to have not been prekilled, so the fur is probably adding to the apparent size.
 
Let me clarify my last post. I feed f/t. When I thaw the mice, I do so by soaking them in warm water. For this reason, the fur gets matted down by the water and this makes it easier to gage the size of the prey item. Because the rat in this picture was evidentally not f/t, the fur is pretty puffy. That makes it harder to tell the prey size just by looking at the rat.
 
If you take away the fur from the rat onpage 22 of the corn snake manual, then it will indead be about 1.5 times the thickest part of the snake.
Remember when mesuring mice to be eaten to discount the fur, as this flattens nicley to the mouse/rat body.
 
I think it was a bit big. If you notice the rat's head is swallowed and there is quite a bit space between the scales on the neck of the snake already.
 
See what you mean Dan. I think the pic serves the purpose of illustrating the "Don't feed anything larger than this" point. The text on page 22 does say that the usual guideline is "one andf a half times the girth of the snake's midbody" but goes on to say that a Corn can handle much larger items if its setup is ideal. I don't think it's a recommendation to do that, just a discussion on the range of prey sizes that could be handled.

In my experience if you feed a Corn something that's to big for it, it will either:
a) Ignore it
b) Get half way through trying to swallow it, spit it out and then ignore it
c) Regurge in the following 48 hours
 
I feed my adult corns small rats. About two times the size of an adult mice. I've never had an issue. I don't of the CSM in front of me this moment, but I'll be sure to check it out when I get home.
 
The rat does appear large, though it does say that it is on the upper end of the scale. Any lager than that = regurge!!
PHEN :cool:
 
Wow! That rat looks huge for that particular snake...He has the head in and look how stretched out he is already....
 
I remember when I was first getting into corns and I bought that book, the guy at the petstore actually said there is one thing in this book that is wrong and showed me that pic. Feeding a snake a meal that big can definitely result in a regurge, it's still the best book you can get on corns though and it does say it's the upper range of food size in the caption. I feed mice, but if I was gonna go with rats I would get the pups.
 
That rat is bunched ~I don't know how to describe what I'm trying to say~ the rat is dead and all it's muscles are lax. The rat is bunched up some between the front and hind quarters~ if you were to grab the rats hind legs and pull back a bit the rat would appear much thinner. That rat is a bit large for that snake~ but if the rat were stretched a little (Which will happen as the snake swallows it) it would not look so much larger than the snake.

Your right~ it is a bit large~ but not as much as the pic makes it look.
 
Yes, that photo was to illustrate a point...

of what corns CAN be capable of under ideal circumstances, but I normally feed a bit smaller meals. And especially for newly acquired corns, or corns stressed in any way (gravid, just laid eggs, recovering from illness, etc), I wouldn't suggest stretching them to the max. It would have been nice to pair it with a photo of the smallest size that is a worthwhile meal, to show the ranges of sizes. Maybe the wording was not clear enough in suggesting that it is the upper extreme, not the norm.
 
My thoughts

Now that Kathy's posted, anything else is a little redundant!

I'm perhaps a nervously cautious feeder. I have 3 adults and a little stock of mice in the freezer from last years mouse breeding efforts. I ended up freezing the breeder females and the 2 stud males and am wondering how long before I'll have the guts to feed them out. They still look so huge to me. My young adult snakes get a young adult mouse as their food item and the rule of 'it should leave a lump, but the lump should have dissapated by 24 hours later', is telling me that I'm picking an appropriate food item. I don't think there's any harm in a little caution on my part. Personally, I'd always prefer to feed smaller items than unduely stress my darlings...but I wonder how long those ex-breeders will be in the fridge!
 
If you need to get rid of some large rodents, you might consider puncturing the belly to speed digestion. Connie Hurley did an experiment with baby corns and pinks. The ones fed the punctured pinks grew more rapidly, so it would probably help with adults eating large meals as well. I feed mostly f/t "holey pinks" now to my babies.
 
you might consider puncturing the belly to speed digestion. Connie Hurley did an experiment with baby corns and pinks
Click to expand...

I remember that thread, and have for the last 2 feed's tryed it with my yearling,s on small mice, and it does seem to have made a differance.
 
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