Feeding corn snakes
Feeding corn snakes
Image by Sirenz Lorraine (flickr)
Corn snakes eat rodents. Generally in captivity you can form all of their diet with mice (although some larger specimens may prefer weaner rats).
You should feed your snake once a week, no more often, no less often. I find you can successfully feed a corn snake once a week throughout its life. You should feed hatchlings 2 pinkies (hatchling mice) a week, then juveniles 2 fluffs (5-7day old mice) a week. Larger juveniles should be given 1 small mouse a week. You can then move onto medium and large mice as the snake grows.
There is a very simple method of judging how big a rodent you should feed to your snake. You should feed something which is no larger than 1.5x the girth of the snake at its widest part (usually somewhere about half way down the snake). It should leave a small bump in the snake but nothing major.
To summarize:
Feed hatchlings 2 pinkies once a week
Juveniles 2 fluffs once a week
Large juveniles 1 small mouse once a week
Gradually increase the size of food using 1.5x the girth of the widest part of the snake as a guide. Only feed 1 item once a week
My preferred method of feeding corn snakes is the "strike method". You wiggle the mouse in front of the snake to encourage it to strike at the food. Snakes in captivity are prone to becoming lazy, this gives them a bit of action so to speak. Occasionally I will simulate a chase where I move the mouse around to get the snake to follow it, I wouldn't really recomend this though as the only time I was ever bit by a corn snake was when I was doing this. It should be noted that the snake was biting me because it thought I was food, not because it was agressive.
Once the snake has bitten onto its food leave it in peace to eat it, they don't really like feeding in front of people as they feel quite vulnerable (having no use of their mouth and limited mobility).
If you find your snake isn't feeding properly, find out why, and what you can do to start your snake feeding again.
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