"Slow grower"

I've seen a few sale posts around here where someone describes a snake as a slow grower, and then goes on to say that he or she is therefore not to be bred. I am curious as to why that is. Is it a heritable trait? Does slow growing often go along with other health problems? Or is it simply that, well, they're smaller, and thus less able to handle breeding?

I ask because I am living with the ultimate slow-grower. I think you'd probably have to redefine the term to even include Worm in it. He's about a year old, and after two months in my care, being fed quite regularly, has finally reached 10.1 grams. Now, I have no plans to breed him-- he's only a pet no matter what. But I am curious about the potential health problems that might go along with slow growth in corns, because I very much want him to be a happy and healthy pet. He's had some shedding difficulties, and tends to be a little shaky when I take him out of his cage. But I don't know whether anything is really abnormal about him except his size, and his absolute and utter conviction that he is a tree-snake. (He won't even eat on the ground anymore-- he pulls the pinky up to the ledge of his feeding bin and eats it up there. It's really pretty cute.)

Anyway, can anyone tell me anything about slow growers? Are they at greater risk for any illnesses? And what defines a normal slow grower? I know Worm is pretty far toward the tail of the bell-curve on that one.

Thanks!

I think its all in the genetics. I had a lil girl that ate like a pig, never regurged and I sold her to a lady on here, who is now a really good friend of mine Tori is as healthy as a horse and is doing well. I get lots of updates! lol I actually kept one of her siblings for a while. She was just a smidge bigger, but just the same as Tori. She was small, great eater, never regurged. She also found a happy home!

Now I'm not saying that every case of a slow grower is genetic. I'm sure some are due to some kind of illness. Good question!

I hadn't heard about not breeding slow growers. I just thought you had to wait until they were big enough to handle the process.

I would like to know too. Mine will also stay a pet, but he is 16 grams and 15 inches. He is 7 months old. So not as small as yours, but a slow grower none the less.

You've only had this snake for two months. What did it weigh before you got it? I ask because if your snake came from a large breeder that had it on a maintenance diet for the first.. 6-8 months or so of its life, then its size probably doesn't have anything to do with genetics. I have a few '09s that I got very late in the year. The are pretty small due to being on a maintenance diet. It seems like a snake that has been on a maintenance diet for a year or so takes a little longer to grow than snakes which have been fed steadily for their first year. That just seems to be my experience. I have a few babies that I just received out of the egg that are almost the same size as my late '09s, and I have a feeling they will pass them up in size pretty quickly under my care.

Also, know that grossly over feeding (power feeding) to make a snake large in a shorter time is MUCH worse for a snake's over all health than a snake who is fed a little less often and is a slow grower. This is because powerfeeding makes the snakes organs work over time. It stresses the snake out, and with constant digestion, the snake's life span is shortened by years. Slower growth/ fewer feeds probably emulates what kind of diet the snake would have recieved in the wild more so than how we feed out snakes in captivity.
Remember that the natural life span of a corn is about 12 years, so your little guy has plenty of time to catch up! Many people like to see their snakes reach 300grams quickly because they are very excited to breed them, but it doesn't necessarily mean that a snake which takes a little longer to reach that is unhealthy. It seems that 10grams is pretty small for a yearling, but if the snake seems healthy besides its weight hopefully you don't have much to worry about.

Maybe you need to start upgrading his/her prey items?

What are you feeding your "slow grower"? Like Jessica said, you probably need to move up in prey size. A 10g baby should be able to take a large pinkie no problem.

The first time I weighed him he was at 8 grams. He was actually a rescue snake, who came to the rescue I picked him up at from a confiscation in Texas. I don't know the details of that, but a *lot* of animals were seized, so I assume that it was pretty bad. So I'm not shocked that he's tiny, given the circumstances, but I was hoping to see a little more growth now that he's eating more regularly.

I feed him a pinky every 5 days, so I'm not power-feeding. I have NO desire to do that! I'll occasionally feed him after 4 days if he's out cruising a lot and pooped on the second day, because he climbs around a lot and does seem to have a stupidly high metabolism. At the rescue all the snakes ate once a week, so his intake has increased since he came to live with me. Of course, the amount of space he has to expend his calories in has increased too!

My main health worry with him besides his size is that he tends to have really bad shed problems. It's not humidity-- it's pretty humid here anyway, and I give him a moist hide before he sheds. He ripped a couple of scales off of his head a few sheds ago, and is still working on coming back from that. I've been wondering whether a calcium deficiency might be a factor, since he's been eating pinkies for a year, so I bought a supplement and am dusting his food every few times. But that's most of it.

I really just want to make sure I'm doing the best I can for him. I think I'm doing all right, but I wanted to hear ideas from people with more experience in case I'm missing anything. So thank you for sharing yours!

wax32 said:

What are you feeding your "slow grower"? Like Jessica said, you probably need to move up in prey size. A 10g baby should be able to take a large pinkie no problem.

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What weight is a large pinky? I'm not sure whether mine count as that, or as mid-sized. I do know he manages to eat them quite successfully, though.

Here's my little arboreal freak munching on his most recent meal:


Does that look like a decent size for him, or should I try to find some bigger ones?

That looks like a 1-2 day old pinkie (small), probably less than 2g. Try offering him 2 of those and see if he eats them. A "large" pinkie weighs about 3g. Obviously weights can vary.

I'd say from looking at your snake it can eat at least large pinks or small fuzzies, but if he will eat 2 small pinks, go with that until you run out.

I am sure he'd LOVE to eat two of those pinkies! The couple of fuzzies I have at the moment are definitely too big for him-- I looked at them last feeding hoping they weren't. But I can quite happily offer two pinks. I was wondering whether to try that, since his lump is always gone the next day. Thanks for the advice!

By the way, he refused to eat the pinky in that pic on the floor of his feeding bin. He reached down, grabbed it, and then wedged himself back up into the rim around the top to eat it. I kind of can't wait until he *is* bigger, because then I'll get to build him a setup with more complicated and better-secured vines to climb around on.

Sounds like a plan!

I have 3 snakes that I got all at the same time from different back grounds. I feed them all at the same time, going up in food as they did. But one of them grew like a weed the first 6 months, the 2nd one grew decent in the first 6 months and the sprouted the last 6 months and they are 3 foot snakes now but the last one is still only a foot in a half long. He is a cute little guy but very small and I wouldn't say that he is any less healthy than the other two if not more healthy than the others.

You may want to consider soaking him when he is going into shed. That will help a lot. Most of mine I don't have to do that with but there is one that I soak each time cause she was causing damage like that. I even once didn't catch her right before her shed since I wasn't home but when I noticed that she was having trouble I started misting her down while she was trying to get out of her skin and that also helped.

As other's have already told you he could probably handle bigger food but sounds like he is just going to be a little guy. However, I am amazed that he sits up there and eats. I have never had one do that although I don't feed in their tanks either so that may account for that although when you move up to fuzzies he may not be able to do that

Oh, I feed them in separate feeding bins. I use the critter-cages I bought to transport them home, though, so they still have ledges and lids. I'm interested to see if he keeps trying to eat in the air when he moves up to bigger prey!

I expect he's always going to be little. My main concern is him getting big enough, eventually, that he's less spooky! He's still got the hatchling fear of being a nice light snack for anything that happens along. Eventually he'll realize that I don't personally consider him delicious, at least not literally, but I'd like him to feel a bit better about, well, anything else that happens to move in the same room as him!

Oh I thought that was a screened lid. That makes even more interesting. Didn't you say that he was a rescue? Maybe that is his jerky problem. Once he realizes that he has good parents now he may get better with time. My smallest came from a not so great situation too. He was fleeting everytime we got him out but over time he became the sweetest one that we have. Even our hatchlings let you pick them up without trying to get away. However, sometimes they don't get better it is just the snake but at least when they get bigger it is a little less challenging to catch them.

I just wanted to thank those of you who suggested I go up to double-pinks with Worm. I fed him a "big meal" for the first time on Friday night, and I could still see the lump yesterday! This is a first. Tonight, however, the lump is gone, he's climbing about at the top of his cage as usual, and he didn't regurge or have any problems at all. That tells me this is definitely a good idea for him. So, hooray! Perhaps my tiny one will have an easier time growing now!

By the way, he still wouldn't eat on the floor of his feeding bin last time. He had a bit of difficulty getting up to the ledge with his first mouse, in fact, and after watching him struggle for a bit I actually took the lid off and guided his tail so it wrapped around the outside of the tank. Once he was up there, he took it. So I'm thinking Mr. Finicky is going to get a *special* feeding bin with a ledge attached for his convenience now.

And they said corn snakes were easy. Hey, as long as it makes the little weirdo happy, right?