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My 4 month old corn wont kill before he eats?

One more thing to add is snakes don't have an instinct to kill and instead an instinct to eat which are wo different things. In the wild they have to kill to eat and in captivity they don't:)
 
If he's hungry he'll more then likely eat with no problem. I have a corn I bought at my local pet & feed store. She was started on frozen but when they got her only fed live since thats all they supplied & she lived on that for 10 months. When I got her the second time I fed her I fed f/t and she gulped it up no problem. The next time I didn't want to risk injury so decided to try to start trying to switch & she's been eating f/t since with not once refusing. And she's been on adult mice since I got her so its proof that it can be done. Just make sure the mouse is really hot when feeding.
 
Fresh killed works for me and mine.

When we got into cornsnakes we tried several different ways of feeding the mice to our snakes. When they were very little we fed them live pinkies because what harm is it going to do?

Then as they started getting bigger we decided we better figure something out before they get stick on live and wont convert. We tried buying frozen and we tried buying live then killing them. Buying live and killing works the best for us. All the benifits of fresh food, no worries of it fighting back.

The local paintball store sold us a CO2 canister with an on/off valve and a short bit of hose. The mice go into a container with a hole in the top, put the hose in the hole, slowly turn on the valve. When it looks like they are done twitching feed them to the snake! They are still nice and warm and only takes a minute. When we were warming frozen pinkies it took much longer.

Thats my recommendation. You will figure out what works for you.
Jimmy
 
LawDog1 said:
We tried buying frozen and we tried buying live then killing them. Buying live and killing works the best for us. All the benifits of fresh food, no worries of it fighting back.
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There are special benefits to frozen as well. I may have read that freezing them kills off any bacteria or parasites they may be carrying. I can't be sure about this though as I cannot remember where I read it.
 
LawDog1 said:
When we got into cornsnakes we tried several different ways of feeding the mice to our snakes. When they were very little we fed them live pinkies because what harm is it going to do?

Then as they started getting bigger we decided we better figure something out before they get stick on live and wont convert. We tried buying frozen and we tried buying live then killing them. Buying live and killing works the best for us. All the benifits of fresh food, no worries of it fighting back.

The local paintball store sold us a CO2 canister with an on/off valve and a short bit of hose. The mice go into a container with a hole in the top, put the hose in the hole, slowly turn on the valve. When it looks like they are done twitching feed them to the snake! They are still nice and warm and only takes a minute. When we were warming frozen pinkies it took much longer.

Thats my recommendation. You will figure out what works for you.
Jimmy
Click to expand...

That is a damn good idea!
 
Thanks, but I can't claim it as my own. I read it on here.

Im sure many others have said it, but I'll say it again. On this forum is an unbelieveable wealth of knowledge. And you may be surprised to see how fast you get a response when you need help. If you have questions or problems, these are the brains to pick.

Jimmy
 
danielle said:
One more thing to add is snakes don't have an instinct to kill and instead an instinct to eat which are wo different things. In the wild they have to kill to eat and in captivity they don't:)
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sorry , but i think you're wrong. both my snakes new how to constrict a mouse and at the petshop they were fed frozen/thawed. so they do have and instinct to kill and to eat. and with expirience they become perfect killers as is doing my ball. (the mouse doesn't feel lots of pain cause she kills them in less then 30seconds usually :) )
 
sorry , but i think you're wrong.
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Come back to us when your Corn Snake keeps his dinner down for more than a week. At the moment you have a 50:50 success rate with feeding, so I don't think your way of doing things is as successful as you're suggesting here.

If the Corn was fed f/t at the shop, maybe the switch to live is causing its repeated regurges?

Captive snakes don't need to constrict or kill, so many don't (although I have a couple that constrict f/t like crazy). They're cold-blooded animals and energy is their most precious resource. They don't need to waste it "killing"/constricting f/t mice, so generally, they won't.
 
you know bitsy you're one of the few who never talked crap to me on this forum and i respect you. BUT you over reacted here budy , My corn never regurged after a week, he regurgs after 4 - 6 weeks. its not entirly my fault the petshop had a corn that looked like 6months old at the age of 1year6months and he found someone like me who never owned snakes to sell it to.

getting back to success rate, i have a 100% success rate with my ball python , never failed to eat, never regurged, kills its prey in less then 2mins once in the viv. and please don't talk about bad temps. my ball python has bed temps too, she doesn't complain.

another point i didn't say anything regurding constrict or kill, thats the snake's choice. but they have the instinct to kill either by constriction or whatever (biting there head/neck etc ) again my ball python was on f/t too and she was switched to live without any probs. so if you're saying my corn keeps down his meal for a weak makes it 50:50 then my success rate is is 90:10 since my corn regurged 5times in 6months. and 100 with the ball. so i think my opinion does count :)

but ok , if i have a regurging snake makes me a n00b here and my opinions counts 0 as long as my corn is regurging then feel free to ignore me or whatever.
 
I think your confusing an instinct to kill with an instinct to eat. Yes snakes in the wild kill to eat, but their not killing for the sake of murdering a mouse which is what "kill" means. They eat via constricting their prey, but to them this is eating not killing if that makes sense:)
 
I think cornsnakes constrict as needed. I’ve seen baby snakes take live pinkies butt first. The pinkie is waving his arms and screaming all the way down. But the mouse doesn’t really fight back or run away. My adults get frozen thawed. I usually will just throw the mouse in and they come over and swallow it. But if I hang on with a pair of forceps the will coil around it. If I pull and fight back the coil and squeeze harder. They will put only as much effort into it as is necessary.
 
AWsneer, I would feed your snake f/t or p/k. In the wild a snake would eat live, but most common snakes in the reptile trade take very well to f/t food items. They are no different than live as far as nutrients. Petco and Petsmart have f/t items.
:cool:
David
 
DarkSmoke said:
getting back to success rate, i have a 100% success rate with my ball python , never failed to eat, never regurged, kills its prey in less then 2mins once in the viv. and please don't talk about bad temps. my ball python has bed temps too, she doesn't complain.
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How big is the Ball? What's the smallest feeding you have given it?
 
snakemaster24 said:
AWsneer, I would feed your snake f/t or p/k. In the wild a snake would eat live, but most common snakes in the reptile trade take very well to f/t food items. They are no different than live as far as nutrients. Petco and Petsmart have f/t items.
:cool:
David
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I am going to feed him a p/k on saturday... so we will see how that goes!
 
AWSneer, besides all the stated upsides to feeding f/t, I feel like it also makes the snakes much more handleable. Not a single one of my ten corns looks at my fingers like a snack when I go to pick them up. I know it's cool to watch snakes take down live prey, but the day you find one of your otherwise healthy babies dead with a green stomach (vet determined live mouse was the cause) you'll switch to and swear by f/t mice
 
DarkSmoke said:
sorry , but i think you're wrong. both my snakes new how to constrict a mouse and at the petshop they were fed frozen/thawed. so they do have and instinct to kill and to eat. and with expirience they become perfect killers as is doing my ball. (the mouse doesn't feel lots of pain cause she kills them in less then 30seconds usually :) )
Click to expand...

...wonders why someone would switch a snake from f/t to live KNOWING the possible risks of injury, parasites and cruelty to the mouse......

UNLESS of course the snakes welfare is less important than the puedo-sexual thrill of watching a terrified little animal get its life slowly snuffed out.....

I loathe people who CHOOSE to feed live...
 
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