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Slow digestion?

L

luschen

New member
Hi, I have an approx 1 year old corn snake. I had been feeding her fuzzies about once every 5 days. She is getting big, about lipstick diameter, so the last two weeks I switched over and fed her small mice. After I defrosted the latest one, it seemed pretty large for a small mouse, but I went ahead and gave it to her and slowly but surely she swallowed it. Yesterday (6 days after feeding), I went to pick her up and the big bulge of the mouse in her stomach was still there. She was moving around the cage alright and took a drink of water. I figured I better not pick her up, and now I'm just wondering if it should take this long to digest. I guess I will go ahead and wait another week to see if the bulge disappears before feeding her again, but was looking to see if this is abnormal and if I should take her to the vet.
 
I don't think you need to be thinking about the vet yet. What are the temperatures in the cage? You should have a warm area around 85*. Snakes need this kind of temperatures to help them digest. Pay attention to when the snake poops. Don't feed it again until it has pooped.
 
Hi luschen. I'll add my two cents for what they're worth. Six days sounds like a long time for her to still be digesting, although I imagine this happens in the wild when a snake opportunistically takes any meal it can get, however large. You say you switched from fuzzies to small mice. Have you thought about transitioning from fuzzies to hoppers instead? They are the next size up from fuzzies (at least where I buy mice). Maybe they would be easier for her to digest. Good luck. :)
 
Thanks for the responses. We have had a cold snap here this week and the cage was a little cooler than normal - 78 on the hot side. I turned the heater up to 85, hopefully that will help. I'll give her one more week and then go to the vet. I get my mice at petsmart and they just have pinkies, fuzzies, small, medium, and large. (I think the smalls are really supposed to be hoppers) If everything ends up ok, I think I will just go back to fuzzies for a few more months and double check the size of the mice before I defrost them.
 
Sounds like a good plan. I feed Sienna hoppers and I've noticed that there is quite a size difference among them. I started with the smallest of them and will work her up to the largest of them.
 
Hi, I wanted to let everyone know that it looks like my snake is doing ok. A little after a week, the mouse lump slowly started getting smaller, and now after two weeks, she has had several big poops and is finally back to normal. I am going to wait a few more days before feeding her again and stick to the fuzzies for awhile longer.
 
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