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little snake needs beefing up

A

AlexEarl

New member
my snake is nearly a year old and is around 33cm long and only weighs in at 12/13 grams. i bought her around may off a reptile shop who gave me a feeding schedule that looked pretty consistent but i have been informed by numerous people that she is very very small for her age (a reptile rescue centre said she is quite energetic so it does not look like the small size is causing her a problem).

in june she decided not to eat for a month until the beginning of july where she has ate 1 pinky every 7 days (refuses to eat every 5 days [well most of the time])

she has currently come out of the blue eye stage and i am waiting for her to shed (still no success with that yet and it is the first time she has started a shedding process with me).

should i try feeding her now or wait till she has finished shedding (the last time she ate was 11 days ago) and has anyone got any tips on getting her to eat every 5 days instead of 7?

thanks
 
She may not be hungry at five days. Rather than feed her more often, you can try a slightly larger prey item, as long its not too big.
 
Yer they are fairly decent sized pinkies and she has no problem eating them every 7 days. I'm
Just worried about her small size, guess there's nothing I can do but wait
 
Can you get her to eat 2 pinkies in one go? Just put both in with her at the 7 day mark and see what happens. You never know, once she's in eating mode she might just automatically react by taking the second one.
 
Yes at that age I would have them on double pinks, unless extremely tiny, of course size that extreme at that age might indicate problems inside the snake. Now, yours does not sound tiny, but perhaps a photo might help with say a quarter to help us gauge her size (I am awful at picturing size by descriptions lol).
 
yer shes eaten 2 pinkies at once on 2 occassions and thats it, ill post a picture later when i get home
 
i live in england so dont have access to a quarter but i got a 50p which is just over an inch in diameter.

just to note while trying to get her out of her log she was very strong and it was quite tricky.
 

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since taking this photo she has successfully done a full shed for the first time with me, hopefully this is a good sign for her. ill try feeding her in 2 days time and then will try every 5 days to try beef her up. im so happy. thanks for all the help although more beefing up ideas are welcome :idea:
 
I have heard that slitting the food also helps increase the growth rate as compared to not slitting the food.
 
i got her when she was around 7 months old so im not sure if she was a fussy eater or not, her feeding record that she come with seemed pretty persistant so im not sure whats up
 
She's tiny but seems proportional to herself. I would offer double pinks every 7 days very well slit. Many of mine seem to get into feeding frenzy once food is offered & will take a 2nd item or bite my finger if a 2nd item isn't offered, and that might be the ticket to getting more protein & calories into your little one. And maybe she is SUPPOSED to be tiny. The Upper Keys corns are small as adults and apparently teeny as hatchlings, so who knows whether she is genetically disposed to be small. As long as she is eating, pooping, shedding, strong & active when handled she's probably OK.
 
I am not sure how true that is. I do not always slit, sometimes I forget. I try to always though, but ya know how it is. I would not know how to test it since every snake has its own metabolism.
 
I believe Kathy Love tested this systematically. I KNOW someone has, I have seen the graphs. The babies were grouped & some groups got slit pinks & some did not and weights were measured. Nanci, do you have that link?
 
do u think that he mayhave lied to you about the snake age and gave you a smaller snake. becouse he did not want to mess with it???
 
I asked them about switching and they got a bit defensive so I am not sure. Now she has shed she is moving round the vivarium, do u reckon I should try feed her or leave it as she refused a feed yesterday and don't want to keep putting her back in my feeding box
 
I would wait a day or two before offering a meal. Too many refusals too quick may mess with her mind & make her act like an anorexic person. Kidding about the phrasing, but apparently it's not good for them to be offered food too often & turn their noses up at it repeatedly. So wait until she is good and hungry.
 
Yer that is what I was thinking, guess I'll wait a couple of days then give her some nicely slit up pinkies that hopefully she will eat
 
Wiggles successfully ate 2 pinkies almost straight away today but i am wondering what my next step should be. Should I feed her 1 pinky in 5 days or try 2 pinkies in 7 days time?
 
Having effectively gone up a food size, I'd say go easy on her digestion to start with and go for 2 in 7 days' time for the next two or three feeds.
 
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