Non-Feeder Mystery

[Karoni]

Okay...I'm going to ask a newbie question that I hope isn't stupid. I don't understand why so many corn babies are non-feeders. There are threads on this issue almost daily. Biologically, it doesn't make sense to me. If they were non-feeders in the wild, they would just die. I'd like to know how many captive snake babies are non-feeders compared to their wild counterparts. Is it just as common in wild snakes or is it rare?

Are these snakes non-feeders due to captivity? Perhaps there's some stress or some unnatural component of captivity that cause some snakes to become non-feeders that would readily feed in the wild. This makes some sense to me and explains why, for example, scenting pinkies with lizard scent works.

Any thoughts?

[Christen]

You are right in the wild they would die but that is why they have so many in a clutch. Non feeders are caused by some many things, some of them are just babies that weren't meant to be and they would die in the wild. Some of it could be possible that it is because of captivity. The scenting with lizard is because out in the wild they would just eat the lizard but since feeder lizards are not normally available we scent it with a pinkie with the goal that they will eat the pinkies with out scenting one day.

I don't think anyone really knows the exact hatch rate and survival right of them out in the wild but I am sure that it is not high at all. I think that even though it seems like there are so many poor eaters. It is a common thing with them if they are in the wild or not. Just we have them so we know and we try to help them at all cost. Where out in the wild they would die or be eaten. So we just don't know if they were problem feeders or not.

[bitsy]

If they were non-feeders in the wild, they would just die.
If they were non-feeders in the wild, they'd be food for something else. Having non-feeding Corns isn't the wasteful exercise in the wild that we find it in captivity. Out in the wider world, non-feeders actually contribute to the survival of other species.

I read (years ago - can't quote a source, sorry) that in the wild, only 1% of Corn eggs hatch then go on to survive to adulthood - imagine how over-run Florida would be if every clutch of 20 eggs resulted in 20 adults!

In captivity, we manage to hatch 90+% of eggs because we can precisely control incubation conditions. It's statistically likely that we're hatching eggs that wouldn't even survive to produce hatchlings in the wild. It's possible that given captive incubation conditions, embryos survive to hatch and be non-feeders which wouldn't get that far in the wild.

Basically, evolution has built in a lot of "natural wastage" with Corns, so that the weaker or sickly ones help form the bottom of the food chain. Non-eaters are a natural extension of how Corns fit into their natural environment and they contribute to the overall health of the wildlife population. It's nothing to do with captivity in my view.

[Shiari]

And to add onto what bitsy said, non-feeders in the wild would soon weaken and attract predatory attention to themselves... and away from the healthy babies.