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feeding question

Tristan

Snake Lover
hey everybody,
my boyfriend and i have had our corn, dante, for about 2 months now. we started him on the Munson feeding plan, but noticed that he would not have a food lump after 24 hours after eating 1 pinky. so we started feeding him 2 pinkies, and that was going well. he would usually eat them both, sometimes he would only eat 1. we went on vacation for a week and fed him the day after we got back. we had to run to petco for pinkies, and they had none left when we got there. the girl suggested we try a fuzzy. being that they had nothing else and it had been about 8 days since his last feed, we went with it.

we took the fuzzy out when we got home and it was huge, but dante managed to eat it anyway. i think it was too big for him, but once he bit it we couldn't get it out. after that we went back to feeding double pinkies. in one of the pinky bags from petco was a peach fuzzy. we fed him that alone for his last feed. today is feeding day, and i don't know what i should feed him. I'm worried that maybe he's growing too fast or is overweight. he doesn't look overweight, and he started growing more after feeding him the fuzzies. he was 11 grams when we got him about 2 months ago, he is now 14.5 grams.

my question is, should we go back to the Munson plan or continue feeding him double pinkies? i realize some corns metabolize faster than others, i just want to do the right thing for my little guy. sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for your help ;)
 
How often do you feed him?

The growth rate doesn't seem too fast. For a baby corn 1g per week is a pretty good growth rate. Then it's growing fast but not too fast. And your boy has been gaining half of that! So I might even suggest you to feed him a bit more often...

Just for comparison:

I got my baby corn "Lillan" approximately a month ago. When I got her she was exactly 1 month old and weighed 12g. Two weeks later she weighed 14g so she's been gaining 1g/week. So far I've been feeding her every 4 days: Every other time she gets 1 tiny pinky, every other time 2 tiny pinkies. When I'm able to give her bigger pinkies/crawlers I'll extend the space between feedings to 5-6 days.

Here's a pic of my Lillan eating. Taken today just a while ago.
imgp7051_orig_SE.jpg
 
whew that makes me feel better! we usually feed him every 5 days. so i should just continue to give him the larger meals then? we'll probably stick to giving him 2 pinkies from now on until he gets bigger. thanks for the response. great shot by the way!
 
I have two babies that weigh 22 and 26 grams. They are on double medium pinks. They could probably be eating large pinks, (single) but I am trying to use up my small pinks. There's no way I'd give either of them a fuzzy.
 
Thanks for the compliment, Tristan! :)

I wouldn't recommend a fuzzy either for a baby corn.

If you would want a baby corn to grow decently you should give it food that weighs approximately 15% of the corns body weight. With your corn, Tristan, that would mean 2g or 2,5g every 5 days. That would be ideal food size for ideal growth rate.

Like I said 1g/week is pretty good growth rate for a baby corn. A bit less is nothing to worry about, but way faster is definitely too much.
And when looking at a longer period of time: a corn snake should gain approximately 100g per year.

I've got a yearling that weighs only about 80g. She's been on a strict "diet" when she lived at the breeder's and she's been growing too slowly. Now I'm feeding her either 2pcs of 5g (fuzzy or crawler or hopper or whatever it is) or one 12-15g hopper every 5-7 weeks. I vary the space between feedings depending on what she's got the last time. When I give her bigger food I let her rest a week. When I give smaller, the rest is 5-6 days. I believe that it's even good for a corns health to feed her irregularly, changing the rest period and changing the size of the food.

Let's see how she gains weight! ;)

And here she is, lavender girl, a yearling with 60cm bodylength and approx 80g weight, and swallowing a 12g mouse:

imgp7065_orig_SE.jpg
 
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