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snake is not growing

Also, you need a gram scale which reads tenths of grams. That will let you really see if she is growing, slowly. A snake typically gains about 30% of the weight of the prey from each meal. So if the pink only weighs 2-3 grams, she isn't going to gain very much per meal. Once you get her up to fuzzies, she ought to start gaining more noticeably.
 
no she isnt a very good eater at all (as you can see from her feeding dates), she will eat well for a few feeds, but then she will go off the food for a bit.

would it be a good idea to try and feed her a pinky as well as a pinky head just to see if this helps her grow, and if she starts eating that frequently i guess i could feed her the bodies?

ill pop down to the paraphernalia shop in town tomorrow as im sure the scales they sell will be quite ideal for measuring grams.

normally she poo's around 2 days after she has eaten, im not with them at the minute as im back at home (my girlfriend is looking after them at my uni residency) so ill check her tonight for the poo and take it into the vet tomorrow to see what they say.
 
i picked up some scales today and weighed her. she came in at 13.1grams which means she has gained 1.1grams since he 21st august. iv got a vet appointment later so hopefully he can shed some light on what is happening with her.
 
I think a pinky plus a head would be fine. Slit the pink, and give it to her first, in case she doesn't like multiple items. It's rare, but it happens.
 
i took her into the vet and he said that her body mass is in proportion to her length and that she looks very healthy. the only idea he could think of that is keeping her this small is a genetic problem and said she might not grow much bigger in her lifetime.

looks like iv got a midget snake on my hands

thanks for all the help
 
I do have one Corn from a Dorset breeder which is less than four feet long as a seven year old. She's been on the same feeding regime as the other (larger) Corns since I bought her as a hatchling. She's just from a bloodline that produces smaller Corns. Although mated from the age of three she first laid when she was five, so watch out for possible later maturity if you have breeding in mind.

Other than that, she's small but perfectly formed! One of my most reliable eaters as well.

Bit confused about the recommendation for Reptoboost though. It's a probiotic rather than a diet supplement. It might speed her metabolism up a bit or perk up her digestive system, but the details say that it's not for long-term use. I wouldn't bother unless she doesn't seem to be digesting properly (i.e. poop looks unusual).
 
yer i read that when i was looking where to buy it, i guess he meant just use it every now and then, so i guess there is no harm in using it once every now and then. ill prob give it a try but use it sparingly as i dont want to give her any problems, id rather her be small and happy then growing fast and damaging her body
 
I highly doubt she is going to stay 13 grams her whole life! If she did- her genes would be in great demand!!
 
I have a ghost that stayed small F-O-R-E-V-E-R. He didn't change weight for the first year. He was on peach fuzzies when all other the other babies his age were up to weaned and then all the sudden he grew like a weed. It seemed like every month I was bumping up his food but now he is actually bigger than the other snakes born around the same time he was. So you just never know. I would continue to monitor weight just to make sure that we are not loosing but sometimes we just need to grow at our own rate.

Oh and he is my pickiest eater. I have learned that he is the one that you put the food in with him actually put the lid on his tub and close him in a cupboard so that he can't see anyone. He will eat every time for me like that. No body else cares, you could have your face in their tub and they will keep eating.
 
yer shes the same, she will only eat if her tank is covered up so no light gets in and she knows no one can see her.

im more excited now to see if she grows or not because it would be quite interesting to have a midget snake + it will be quite cheap compared to the other rubbish bin snakes i have that just gobble their meals down without a second thought
 
I have a slow grower too-- a little snow stripe I got from a rescue. She was 8 grams when I got her, and continued being about 8 grams until I realized that she was probably about a year old, and was kind of horrified. She started having shedding problems and developed a slight tremor as well. I started alternating 4 and 5 days between feedings, as mentioned above, and bumped her up to two pinkies a little earlier than the Munson Plan suggests, because she was always out cruising for more food the day after a feeding. I'm pretty sure she just has a particularly high metabolism. I also always slit her pinks. Makes them more appetizing, as well as more easily digested!

In her case, because of the shed problems and tremors, I started supplementing her with calcium at some feedings as well. Pinkies have very underdeveloped bones, and don't contain much calcium, and she really should have been getting more by that age. It worked-- she is shedding perfectly again, and lost the tremor. She was 30 grams at last weighing, and she's currently on one peach fuzzy and one pinky, because her head isn't quite big enough yet to handle a full fuzzy. I think in a few more feedings she will be able to, though. And since I am told that corns often have a growth spurt when they move up to fuzzies, we'll soon see whether that's true of Worm too!

Supplementing is a dicey business, by the way, and for a healthy snake, I am told it's likely to do more harm than good. But it seemed to be just what Worm needed, and as soon as she was consistently shedding correctly and I got her up to at least one peach fuzzy, I stopped supplementing her too. You'll probably never have to worry about that.

Good luck with the tiny one!
 
I'm so glad Worm is doing so well! What supplement did you use and where did you get it? I don't have a good reptile store where I live and its about a two hour drive to the only breeder close by.
 
Yer I have just purchased a brand new modelling knife because they are super sharp and should dice those pinks up nicely. The one I had before was blunt and ended with me slicing the same spot over and over so I gave up slicing until now. I'll feed her Thursday (5 days since she last ate) and hopefully she will take it.

If anyone is from Britain and has a companion care near them, go there and register as the first consultation is free so the vet trip I took cost nothing :)
 
Dreamsnake said:
I'm so glad Worm is doing so well! What supplement did you use and where did you get it? I don't have a good reptile store where I live and its about a two hour drive to the only breeder close by.
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Actually, I just used ZooMed Reptivite with D3. I know it's for lizards, but as a temporary solution to get little Worm's calcium up, it worked a treat. I'm lucky I diagnosed the problem right (I think). I went by the fact that her sheds were so thin and shreddy, and she'd probably been eating only pinkies for a year or more. (She was, as I said, a rescue, and came in with a ton of other corn snakes from that big confiscation in Texas in late 2009, so I don't technically know how old she was when I got her in May, or started supplementing in July.) I can't wait until I get her up to fuzzies, so I can relax in the knowledge that she's getting enough calcium from her prey!

A very knowledgeable vet tech told me just a couple of months ago that snakes have been known to have problems with the supplements, though, so do be careful. I don't know what problems specifically, but she definitely wasn't a fan.

I love love LOVE getting perfect shed after perfect shed from Little Worm, after all the problems we had. I didn't notice her going blue last time (perils of a snow), so I didn't even add her humid hide, and she did just fine. I'm so thrilled with her progress!
 
A very knowledgeable vet tech told me just a couple of months ago that snakes have been known to have problems with the supplements, though, so do be careful. I don't know what problems specifically, but she definitely wasn't a fan.
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Advice from my vet was that it's relatively easy to overdose a reptile and some supplements can cause liver or kidney problems if given in high concentrations or for too long. However, he told me that for short periods at the correct dosage, they can work wonders.

A calcium+D3 supplement does seem to be a great pick-me-up. In the UK we can get a liquid version called Zolcal-D which you can put in their drinking water or inject into food. That's sometimes easier than persuading a peaky-feeling snake to eat dusted food.
 
i might have to try that bitsy because she has failed to eat today and has been in her container in complete darkness for 5 hours now.

im going to wait another 3 days and try a dusted pinky (with the free reptiboost the shop gave me!!!!) and see if she eats that, but they said a picky eater might be put off by the dusting. so if that fails i will have to pick up some of this Zolcal-D.

im going to change her feeding pattern to every 7 days now seeing as she is refusing every 5 days to see if i can get a steady feeding pattern
 
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