Today was adoption day!...feeding double check

[Bethanne]

I'm almost more excited than my son that today was our long awaited adoption day for our first corn snake. He has been earning money to buy his corn for more than 4 months making and marketing duck tape wallets. He bought every scrap of everything himself...he's 10 and just finished 4th grade. Today was the Hamburg, Pa reptile show and we went looking for a late 2010 hatchling with a mellow personality and good eating habits. We found the perfect guy in a lovely 20" long Okeetee that we named Argus. He is really pretty with black and white checkers on his belly so perfect he is ready for a game of chess.

His breeder says to feed him 4 pinkies once a week...all at once. That is what he has been used too. He's recieved a combo of f/t or live all his life and the breeder gave us 4 live pinks for today (he normally eats on fridays). That seems like a lot. From what Im reading he should maybe move up to a bigger peach fuzzy for more nutrition? Frankly the pinks dont look like more than a little skin, bones and blue organs. We got a bag of pinks in various sizes and a bag of peach fuzzies. I don't know his grams yet, but he seems very sturdy, and muscular (postage scale??) Can anyone advise me for next week? I plan to strech his next feeding till next monday...only because feeding and then not touching a new pet will work better monday to wednesday rather than a kid not being able to touch his pet on a weekend. He snarfed all 4 pinks in about 20 minutes and seems content to rest under his substrate now. All in all he seems a happy guy and my son is thrilled.

[starsevol]

I'm almost more excited than my son that today was our long awaited adoption day for our first corn snake. He has been earning money to buy his corn for more than 4 months making and marketing duck tape wallets. He bought every scrap of everything himself...he's 10 and just finished 4th grade. Today was the Hamburg, Pa reptile show and we went looking for a late 2010 hatchling with a mellow personality and good eating habits. We found the perfect guy in a lovely 20" long Okeetee that we named Argus. He is really pretty with black and white checkers on his belly so perfect he is ready for a game of chess.

His breeder says to feed him 4 pinkies once a week...all at once. That is what he has been used too. He's recieved a combo of f/t or live all his life and the breeder gave us 4 live pinks for today (he normally eats on fridays). That seems like a lot. From what Im reading he should maybe move up to a bigger peach fuzzy for more nutrition? Frankly the pinks dont look like more than a little skin, bones and blue organs. We got a bag of pinks in various sizes and a bag of peach fuzzies. I don't know his grams yet, but he seems very sturdy, and muscular (postage scale??) Can anyone advise me for next week? I plan to strech his next feeding till next monday...only because feeding and then not touching a new pet will work better monday to wednesday rather than a kid not being able to touch his pet on a weekend. He snarfed all 4 pinks in about 20 minutes and seems content to rest under his substrate now. All in all he seems a happy guy and my son is thrilled.

4 pinks at one time seems like an awful lot to me. My 2010s are mostly on fuzzys once every 5 days. Plus you might want to switch to frozen thawed. Easier, cheaper, more convienent and more humane for the mouse. Plus no chance of parasites, or in the case of bigger mice less chance of injury down the road.
Yeah, I would weigh him on a postal scale, I think grams is the most commom measure of weight for these guys.

[Lennycorn]

I would wait a week or more til I would try to feed or handle the snake. This will give the snake a chance to settle in and be less stressful, being that it's been ""shipped"" around since the show.

Your thoughts are correct too. Four pinks is NOT the norm. The general rule of thumb is to feed your snake I food item that is 1 1/2 time the snake biggest girth. And only one food item...except when you move up to the next size. Then you double up. Example..2 pinky for four feeding or so then one hopper.

Just read up on the forum and click on the sticky in each forum and give it a read. Ask away if you have any question you can't fine an answer for.

[Cassie16]

Congratulations - your son sounds like the epitome of responsible! That's awesome that he purchased everything himself. I think that shows real dedication. What a sweet heart :)

As for feeding five pinkies: before I got my corn snake, he was being fed sometimes upward to five pinkies all at once. I have heard from an experienced reptile friend that it's easier for snakes to digest one small meal rather than a bunch of little ones. I cannot find any literature supporting this (nor have I really looked), but it seems that most people on this forum try to move up a size when they can rather than feeding multiple small sized mice.

You can use a postal scale or kitchen scale, anything that will weigh the small size of a snake. The Munson Plan guidelines set on this forum go by grams.

I can tell you I moved up to fuzzies when mine was about the same length, but that really doesn't help much as you want to go by girth/weight more than length.

I agree frozen is more convenient, safer, et. cetera, but of course it's your call!

Good luck!

[SnakeAround]

I'm sure you both will have loads of fun caring for the little critter!