Eating, not shedding nor growing. (very concerned)

Hello everyone.

On the 8/8 this year we decided to expand the family and acquired two new baby corns from a local breeder (not so local, but in the same country, at any rate):

A male Snow Motley hatched on the 25/6 and a female Snow Stripe hatched on the 15/7. And shed on the 2/7 and 21/7 respectively. At the time of our pickup, both the female and the male had several successful feeds.

Both have been doing good, they're eating and pooping just fine, and although the male had a couple weeks of refusal since he was going into shed, he resumed feeding with no problems.

He shed two times with us already and is showing remarkable growth.

The problem is the female. Whilst she has NEVER MISSED A FEED with us, she simply is NOT shedding nor has shown any substantial growth in the 2 months we've had her. She is still smaller, and at least half the male's girth.

I am wondering if I ought to be concerned? I am very concerned, personally, but I don't know if it's up to anything wrong with her or she's just a very slow grower...

Oh, and they're living in hatchling tubs with a bottle cap for water and paper roll.

By the way, just noticed, and the title is supposed to say NOT instead of NOW.

That all sounds normal to me, some snakes grow very fast while others are a little slower. As long as they are eating a good sized meal every 5-7 days I would not worry.

Some snakes just grow at a slower rate than others. I have 4 year old snow aztec that was under 20 grams for 2 years, took her next year to make it 50 grams and only in her last year has she really started growing and is now close to 200 grams.

Ask your vet to deworm her (going to be tough due to her small size, but not impossible), and if you aren't slicing the skin on the back of the pinkies, start doing so as that helps the snake digest it faster and better. How often are you feeding and what size pinky is she on? How is her viv set up, how is she fed and what are the temps in her viv? Just checking to make sure everything is optimum.

Susan said:

Some snakes just grow at a slower rate than others. I have 4 year old snow aztec that was under 20 grams for 2 years, took her next year to make it 50 grams and only in her last year has she really started growing and is now close to 200 grams.

Ask your vet to deworm her (going to be tough due to her small size, but not impossible), and if you aren't slicing the skin on the back of the pinkies, start doing so as that helps the snake digest it faster and better. How often are you feeding and what size pinky is she on? How is her viv set up, how is she fed and what are the temps in her viv? Just checking to make sure everything is optimum.

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Hey, thank you for the replies.

She (well, both of them) have been feeding on day old mice pinkies (though they were being fed on live multi pinkies by the breeder, we had no problems with swapping them to f/t), she's on a small hatchling tub (about, say 8x15cm ) with a generous quantity of rolled paper inside (she hides between the folds) and a bottle cap for water.

Temperatures are around 28 celcius in the warm side (this is the room temperature the breeder was keeping hatchlings at, since he didn't warm them individually) and about 23 on the cold side. Temperatures go down at night since I turn everything off for the corns.

Please let me know if I'm doing something wrong!

As a matter of fact, today is feeding day for the babies, I just offered her pinkie and she STRUCK at it like an adult would do. She sometimes even constrict them. She is definitely a voracious feeder... just not growing.

Hatchlings typically shed about once a month, but my bloodred clutch from early August is only going through their second shed now. So _some_ will go longer than normal.

Once your male has a head start in growth, the gap is only going to get more pronounced, but it is nothing to worry about. I had these lavender babies last year, and they seemed so slow to start growing compared to the various other hatchlings. Soon they were lagging way behind- tens of grams behind. But then they took off. Now the male lavender is my biggest yearling!

It is comforting to me to have a scale that weighs in tenths of grams so I can see the slightest progress. I have snakes that I have watched weight creep up so slowly it was almost unbearable! 7.0, 7.0, 7.1, 7.1, 7.3, then a shed and back to 6.9

Slitting REALLY helps, and there was just a study released by BHB Reptiles in which cornsnake hatchlings were given a multi-vitamin powder on their pinks and they grew faster than the ones that weren't given it.

Some people will say well slower growth is healthier (of course it is for large weight-bearing animals like horses and big dogs) but show me the evidence that a fast-growing snake, as long as it isn't overfed and allowed to become fat, is unhealthy compared to one whose growth has been "restricted." I believe that the faster a hatchling gets out of the tiny worm stage, the better it is able to withstand the rigors of captivity and any unfortunate events that may befall it such as an escape and long stretch of not feeding, "enthusiastic' handling by someone not accustomed to handling small, fragile snakes, an illness or regurgitation. Plus, once a baby hits the 25-50 gram range it just becomes a lot easier and more fun to handle!