Slow down in eating because of winter?

I have been feeding my girl every 10 days and she usually starts her hunting behavior around 5 days after her meal. She went 14 days between feeding once this month because of shedding but she is usually a hungry girl and ready by the tenth day. I had some issues with her warm side temps which I got help for from here but I have got that resolved. Her warm side is staying around 86 directly on the center of the tile with the heating pad with lots of substrate and hides scattered around. She has only occasionally been on that side though. She keeps going back to her cool side which drops as low as 68 last night. Even after she was fed last week, I put her in on her warm side and she crawled right to her cool side and curled up on her ledge. She has been out and drinks water and spent a little time exploring her viv but she isn't hunting or looking for an escape like normal. The mouse I fed her last week was larger than she had been eating. I was actually afraid it was too big but she swallowed it with no problem and had a bump for about three days from it. I was feeding her smaller mice but the bump was barely noticeable and was gone before two days so I figured it was time to go up some in size. It has been nine days since her last feeding so I got her out for a little while last night and checked her over. She looks fine but is acting really skittish and kept trying to hide. We have had a small earthquake here with some slight aftershocks the last few days. I wonder if she is nervous because of that and just doesn't feel safe to come out and hunt or if she has decided that it is winter and she just wants to rest? I did move her light(a 25 watt red bulb) to her cool side because I was afraid the temp was too low. It hasn't raised the temp any so far but I figured it wouldn't hurt to give her a little extra heat.

I just need reassurance that her staying on her cool side all the time even after eating is okay. Or maybe I need to get the temp down even more on her warm side?

I would lower the warm side temp to 83-84 and see how she does usually going to the cool side is a sign its to warm on the warm side. Your snake will do what it needs to to keep its temp regulated, there are exceptions to this being some wont move because there to scared. That's a good reason to have ground cover between warm and cool sides. I would turn off the light or move it up higher off the screen top so it doesn't add extra heat to the warm side. I take it your using UTH for the warm side? are you using a thermostat with that and monitoring the temps by a second measure to be safe? Don't use the light on the cool side if it heats that area your snake has no where to go. Try the 83-84 I'm typically set at that temp and my snakes stay on the warm side all day till the explore of hunt.

I used to worry that it was too cool during the winter on my cool side, but my snakes seem to prefer it and no one slows down for feeding. I've not noticed a difference in feeding for winter because the temps are kept up. In spring the males go off food but otherwise mine are eating machines year round.

Thanks for the info. I got the temps down on her hot side some but that dang rheostat is driving me crazy. She has been coming out but if she sees any movement she runs and hides. She used to come out every evening a few days before feeding day and "hunt" but she has started hiding all the time. Nothing has changed except the weather has cooled and we had a small earthquake and have been having small after shocks. She has never liked me to handle her but once I got her out she would explore. Now she just goes looking for a place to hide. She has seven hides in her viv and I added some more fake greenery hoping that would bring her out. It has been 13 days since she ate and she still hides all the time and isn't out looking unless she is doing it while I am asleep. A real probability. I am out of frozen mice right now and won't be going to where I buy them until Tuesday. I don't know if I should go get her a live mouse from the local pet shop or just wait until I can get the frozen ones. I really wish the local pet shop would offer frozen mice but they are very against it. The owner and her son insist that it is better for the snake to eat live. I have tried explaining it isn't necessary and is in fact dangerous but they just give me that pitying look and knowing smile that says "just humor the crazy lady". I have to travel 150 miles to Petsmart to find frozen mice. I cannot find any thing closer. Good thing I got there once a month for a doctor visit. I was planning on stocking up the last time but they were out of anything but pinkies and I didn't think that would work for a full grown snake. At least I think she is an adult. She has laid infertile eggs once but she is still growing. She has grown almost 3 inches since I got her a few months back.

I have go to stop rambling on. I seem to do that everytime. LOL

I must admit, I'd think a Corn would be very sensitive to aftershocks. They can sense changes in air pressure even indoors, so regular vibrations which would mean "danger" in the wild, might well make them edgy and cause a problem with eating.

Having said that, 13 days without food is absolutely fine. A few days more without food won't hurt - a healthy Corn can go for weeks without food (as they sometimes would do in the wild, when prey isn't available). My adults eat at most once every 14 days, sometimes less often depending on whether I think they're getting a little chubby.

As you fed her a larger mouse last time, she's probably just happy that she's eaten. It's always a problem looking to their behaviour for clues as to when you should feed. Wrinkles like the current one can really mess up a system! If I were you, I'd get yourself a feeding schedule and then offer her food regularly, whether she looks like she wants it or not. That way you know that she'll regularly have the opportunity to eat and you won't be fretting about when it's time to feed.

Good luck finding a frozen food source. That must be a horrible situation to find yourself in.

To me it's a corn acting like it's going to shed. Combine that with the Earthquakes and you might have some stressors going on. I'd look to an online source or see if there's anyone nearby that breeds rodents. Sometimes you have to ask around to find it out. The petsmart people told me about the local breeder I used when I moved here. The mice Petsmart sells are too expensive to feed as many as I had. It's too bad that the petstore owners are so uninformed. You can still get a live and then prekill it before feeding. The only issue I have is with parasites. Freezing kills them and usually petstore mice are kept in large colonies that breed parasites and bacteria. You could also buy a number of the mice, pre kill them and freeze them for a while before feeding. If this snake has indeed laid slugs, then she is an adult. I only feed my adults every 2-3 weeks so 13 days is nothing for them. My males went off food for 3-4 months every breeding season and rarely lost more than 50 grams in that entire time. I wouldn't worry about it all that much. Relax! In the meantime, I'd get a thermostat to replace the useless rheostats. A rheostat does not adjust for outside air temps and so I dislike them a lot. I'd also stop handling her right now until she calms down and feeds for you. It won't hurt them to not be handled and corns rarely get nasty if left alone. I had some that were barely handled for long periods and turned into my calmest snakes. If I had particularly nervous snakes, those weren't handled at all until they got to be larger and they became more tame than some of the others.

Thanks everyone. I do tend to worry too much about everything that comes up with her. She was my nephews snake and I am worried that she will just kill over because of something I have done. Which isn't very likely I suppose since she was living in a rather bad situation, i.e. 10 gallon tank for an almost 3 foot snake, dirt substrate that was never changed, heat rock only for warmth, small water dish that was seldom changed, and fed only when his grandmother got around to buying a mouse. Love my nephew but he tends to jump in a buy all these exotic pets and then ignore them and they die.

I have been checking online and locally but can't find anyone who breads mice for snakes other than this pet shop. All the places online charge so much for shipping. The only other pet store I could find was the Petsmart that is just over 100 miles away. I have to go there once a month so I am hoping to catch them with a good supply and stock up. I am going to buy a digital thermostat as soon as possible. I have to use a space heater for warmth in my room and the temperature varies widely. I am working on another viv because I want another corn and I am trying to locate some two way mirror for the front. I tried mirrored tint on Pumpkin's viv but it didn't work out so well.

She shed 21 days ago. she has been going blue around every 4 weeks. She has only shed three times since I had her. I have been marking everything down to establish a pattern with her. She has never regurged, sheds in one piece, has smooth, shiny scales, eyes are clear, drinks water regularly, poops fine, so I know she is healthy. I will just have to learn to chill.

cornsnakes are tougher than nails and it takes a lot to get them to "keel" over (even though they have no legs to keel off of ) It's surprising that she sheds as often as she does being an adult. Mine shed quarterly usually. Only babies shed monthly...excepting the false water cobras who shed a lot even as adults. If she sheds every 4 weeks though, she's in the middle of another shed cycle and that could explain her lack of appetite.

Shedding once a month at her size - sounds like she's putting on a growth spurt due to the unexpected regular feeding! Just in case, keep your eyes open for other problems such as scale rot - that can cause frequent rapid shed cycles and loss of appetite.

I thought it was unusual for her to shed so much but she looks healthy. She has grown almost 3 inches since I took her in. I have had her around 4 months. He told me to feed her every 8 days but his grandmother, my sister, said he was just feeding her every couple of weeks because she was the one buying the mice. He was always broke. I started out every 8 days but after reading everything here on feeding, I switched her to every 10-14 days. I can't help but wonder if she slowed down growing because he wasn't feeding her enough and it slowed her growth. Maybe now she is making up for lost time? The first few times I fed her, I just picked up her hide and set her in the feeding tub and she came out so to grab the mouse she scared me to death. Now she just crawls over to it and lays across it glaring at me until I close her lid.

She laid eggs back in the Spring. She escaped and was gone for a month before his sister discovered her in a plant on the tv. She laid eggs about a week later and he called me wanting to know if they would be fertile. The pet store told him corn snakes will breed with anything. They were yellow and some where malformed. They started rotting right away. The pet store also told him she was a he. They had no idea how old she was. They said "young" when he bought her. She was around 15 inches. He brought her over for me to see and she could wrap around my wrist and hand about one and a half times.

What do I look for to check for scale rot? I check her over regularly and she doesn't have any soft spots or any discoloration. Or missing scales. Speaking of the devil, she is out right now getting a drink. On her warm side no less. I have water bowls on the warm and cool side. I am going to go Google scale rot. I really need to find a vet for a checkup. My vet said he would look at her but he is no exotic animal vet. Just a country vet.

You would notice if she had scale rot. Generally it's due to moist dirty conditions and she doesn't have that. The scales will be pink or red and often have a crusty scabbing on them. I don't take snakes to the vet unless I think there's an issue. They don't really need checkups like dogs or cats do. If she is active and eating and drinking (and even not eating she's still active) has shiny scales and good muscle tone, she's fine. Feeding every couple of weeks is fine. I feed that or longer in between. While the snake will mature more slowly, it's more on track with nature. We overfeed domestic snakes by a long shot. Snakes rarely if ever eat weekly in the wild and often are lucky to eat once a month. She sounds healthy enough so I wouldn't worry about it.

Well said and i am completely agreed with you. At winter this is common problem that no one likes to eat too much. So if this problem occurs then don't worry.

I've never had a snake that stopped eating in winter...only the spring during breeding season. Temperatures are kept up in the snake's cages in winter so none of them think it's winter.