• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Damaged snake not eating

Nclmerz

Nclmerz

New member
Hello,

I have a full grown corn snake who I bought from an individual who I have had for about a month and a half now. When I got him, I noticed that he had some damage to his scales that has scabbed over. Since I have had him though, he has only eaten once. The person I bought him from told me he had been eating up to two mice a week. I am somewhat concerned about the fact that he hasn't been eating much since I have gotten him then. He has been drinking plenty of water, but I am wondering if it is possible that the reason he is not eating is because of his scrape?

Thanks!
 
obboi34 said:
It's possible, but tell us more about your husbandry set up.
Click to expand...

I will second this. That could be the case. What type of bedding, heating are you using? What are your temps? How often are you handling? When was his first meal with you? How are you feeding? How bad was the injury and where? These type of answers will help us, help you find the answer to your new little babies issue.
 
We use day lights and red lights, and have a sort of coconut husk bedding. The temps are about 80 degrees on the warm side of the tank and 75 on the cool side. We also have 8 other snakes, two other adults, and six babies/juveniles, who are in similar enclosures, but none of them are having feeding issues.

Thanks!
 
For handling we usually handle about once to twice a week, rarely longer than 5-10 minutes. For feeding we have a specific feeding tank we place him in, which we use for all of the adult snakes. The one time he did eat was probably 2-3 weeks after we got him.
 
I could be completly off but is it possible he was getting two live mice a week? Could that explain the scabbing and not feeding?
 
Where are you taking the temps? If the temps are that much half way up the tank wall it is possible it is anywhere from 3-5 degrees cooler at the bottom of the tank where the snake is at. That could explain the slow down in eating.
 
I could try to adjust the temps more, but I'm not sure how I would do that since we have both of the lights set up. For the mice, he was eating live mice previously, but we have tried feeding him both live and and thawed frozen mice. We have also tried boiling frozen mice, and have tried soaking the mouse in a bullion. But I find it odd that he is a picky eater now because the previous owner did not mention him having any eating problems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top