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Feeding an underweight snake

pretends2bnormal

pretends2bnormal

New member
So, to make a fairly long story short, about 4.5 months ago, I had a hatchling Texas gray banded kingsnake escape. (How is still a myster.. a corn snake half the size didn't even manage to escape from the same setup, so I'm just scratching my head).

By March (~2 months) I figured he was a goner. Maybe not starved to death. But lack of water. He was 12 grams measured a few days before his houdini act. Flash forward to this past weekend, and we were rearranging a room to move the snakes to later on and found a nearly 1 piece shed (head portion separate, but no tears anywhere else). Couldn't have been another snake, and sure enough we found him under as leather cube automan.

Unfortunately, he looks fairly underweight to me (no surprise). We caught him, set him up in a small bin, and offered a small pinky. He took it immediately, took about a 5 minute drink of water, and went to digest. That was 3 days ago. Since he's acting fine, digested it fully (and pooped), I'm trying to figure out how often I should offer food to get his weight up. He's surprisingly 13 grams now, but looks a good 2 inches longer. Definitely not as good body shape as before.

Few pics from before:
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And after (first pic with definitive mouse lump):
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7f4e8373906f2cf40d42976c28c603b5.jpg

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TL;DR - underweight young kingsnake found after being missing for 4.5 months. How often should I offer food? 4 days (where I'm leaning), 5 days, 7 days (sounds like too long to get him healthy fairly soon)?

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Honestly, he doesn't look all that underweight. Feed him the same way you would a normal hatchling of his size, as he's definitely not emaciated to the point that refeeding syndrome is an issue.
 
That's good to hear.

The newer pictures aren't great, but I know he's definitely slimmer than before his escape just from holding him and can just see the ridge of his spine all down his back. I kind of figured that visible spine = underweight, at least for a kingsnake.

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It's not ideal, but it's not a flat-sided triangle and there's no ridges of loose skin from emaciation. So just kinda skinny and that should correct quickly.
 
Although somewhat thin, he appears to be healthy, and I love to hear stories with a happy ending. If he was mine I would feed him every 4 days, as many suggest that pinkies are not loaded with nutrients. I like to get my hatchlings moved up to at least peach fuzzies as soon as possible. I also dust my pinkies lightly with reptile vitamins, but I'll leave that topic for another day, as it may cause conniptions.
 
Good news, he seems to be doing pretty well so far. He's gotten through 2 meals now and is calming back down. Got musked on when I picked him up to get a weight after his first meal, but not this time.

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