I bought an adult corn, feeding question.

[stcktnkid]

Hi, i have a young 05 reverse okeetee that is about 18 inches and roughly 6 months old. He is doing great, just shed and ate on Saturday. His colors are amazing. Well yesterday I went out to a pet store i have yet to go to, and they had an melanistic corn snake that they said was around 2.5 years old. He is 36 inches long. He is only orange with red spots down his back....that is a melanistic corn right? Well he has little white spots. Here is his story....


This pet store lady told me she sold him to a family that was a friend of hers. They had him for about 1.5 years and the ladys son stopped playing with him and she was the only one handling him...so she returned it to the same pet store about 2 months ago..now the lady that runs the pet store told me she handles him allll the time and he was very nice, so i was holding him with my buddy from college for about an hour in the store walking around looking at other things, and i fell in love and bought him. She told me that he is getting live rat pups ever 14 days. He looks pretty plump. So should i stick with that feeding schedule? Should i try to switch over to f/t, and if so when? This guy is so personable. He is very active and looks all over the place when u walk around the room. Should i try and feed him more often like once ever 10 days, 7 days, 14 days? He also just shed this week. And it was a once piece shed, b.c it was still in the tank when i went to the pet store.

 

[Susan]

Sounds like you found yourself an amelanistic friend. Amelanistic means he is lacking melanin (black pigment), hence he shows nothing but white, yellow, orange and red. You probably wouldn't have any trouble switching him to F/T at any time. You might want to increase his feeding schedule to once a week or every 10 days (or even alternate). I personally don't like my adults to go every 14 days on a regular basis if at all possible, but on the rare occasion, it's fine.