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Feeding multiple small vs 1 large rodent

L

Lakehood

New member
Hi folks -

We got a baby corn snake in February, our first snake kept as a pet. Started out on small pinkies from Petco, but found on-line prices much cheaper even with the expensive shipping. So we ordered 100 large pinkies. Now I realize that, at the rate this boy is growing, at one feeding per week I'll be stuck with about 95 of those large pinkies when he is ready for the next size up. He readily eats more than one in a single feeding now. Will it matter to his health if we continue adding as many as he seems to want at a time until they are gone? Or is there something important about getting all of his meal in a single lump of the correct size?

Thanks.
 
Nope, use up your pinkies. It's actually easier for them to digest multiple food items as opposed to one large single food item. Also, since your snake is a baby, you can feed every five days. After about a year old, feed them every 7 to 10 days. Do a search on this site for the Munson Plan. It's a guide which shows which size prey item to feed to a corn based on it's weight and legnth and how often to feed. Lot's of people feed in accordance to the Munson Plan, however, it's not the 'bible'. Good luck.

Mitch
 
I guess after reading your post I should have also mentioned that you should be certain your not overfeeding your snake. Overfeeding can be dangerous and present a lot of health problems. Your snake will happily eat way more than it should if you offer it more mice , kinda like a child with candy.
 
Lakehood said:
... adding as many as he seems to want at a time until they are gone?
Click to expand...

You don't mean feed him until he's satisfied do you? Because corn snakes are opportunistic feeders. They eat at any chance they get to. So, If you mean to feed him until he's satisfied, then dont do that, because he will end up being overfed and regurgitating, and that will lead to further problems and so on, so forth...
 
Thanks, folks :) Just the answers I needed. Also appreciate the warnings about not overfeeding. Might have done that if I didn't learn otherwise. You read a lot about problems getting snakes to eat, but not about them eating too much.
 
I don't know much about this, but thought I had read somewhere that pinkies don't offer as much nutrition/calcium to the snake as fuzzies do. If you're going to have him on pinkies for a long time, perhaps some nutritional supplement would be appropriate until he's on fuzzies? Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me will answer....
 
Karoni said:
I don't know much about this, but thought I had read somewhere that pinkies don't offer as much nutrition/calcium to the snake as fuzzies do. If you're going to have him on pinkies for a long time, perhaps some nutritional supplement would be appropriate until he's on fuzzies? Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me will answer....
Click to expand...

I've heard this before as well but I am not this more knowledgeable person you were looking for!

If I remember correctly BHB is doing some testing on this as we speak. The did 4 test groups. One on above average prey items, one on standard total weight divided into two meal items, one group with standard portion and added vitamins, and a control group that is fed 10-15% of their weight. So far I believe they did one update and the group with two meals was in the lead followed closely by standard w/vitamin meal.

I cant recall the SnakeBytez episodes that these are in but I'm sure we could find out again. They will periodically update viewers on the growth of these groups. It should be very interesting!
 
**EDIT to the above**

These groups were comprised of five(?) corn snakes each, with a group starting weights the standard measurement of progress. Groups all started within approximately 3 grams of each other.
 
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