Juan Starving?! Very Worried.

[MACS76]

Juan on 8/27/13 weighed 32.6 grams tonight 9/21/13 he weighs 30.1 grams. In this time frame he has eaten only one little pink. I can see his spine as a slight ridge down his back. I am terrified that he is starving. Could the noise and activity of being in the classroom be too much for him? I think I need to bring him home where it is quiet and a lot less movement and noise. At home I can spend time in the evening working on getting him to eat, with more resources that I do not have at school.


Chino is doing fine and seem to love the classroom.
Please any advise would be VERY helpful.

I do not want to loose my little one. :cry:

[hypnoctopus]

I wouldn't say that he is starving, just yet. But if he's not eating reliably yet, I would definitely bring him home and get him a good head start before he has to be in a busier environment. I would try feeding him once every 5 days.

[MACS76]

Thank YOU for the response.

[HerpsOfNM]

I'd possibly suspect lack of enough caloric intake. 2 primary things can contribute to this:
1. not enough food,
2. too warm of an environment.

#1 can be remedied easily, particularly once you get Juan feeding regularly. The easy part is using Juan as your food amount and/or prey item size calculator. You want to use the widest point as your measure, this is generally the middle of the snake. I typically go by 2 rules of thumb: 1) prey items should be no bigger than 1.5x times the thickest point of the body and 2) you should see a slight feed bolus (bulge) at mid-body for 24-48 hours after feeding. Many small snakes go through an awkward stage where feeding 2 pinkies is too little and feeding 1 fuzzie is too much. Bob Applegate (a once large-scale king and milk snake breeder) always told me multiple small meals more frequently was more healthy than 1 huge meal. His logic was that this kept the metabolism elevated, thus assumingly optimizing growth to get young snakes up to larger, more well nutritionally balanced prey.

#2 can be a combination of it and #1. Too warm of temps and in poikilothermic animals, such as reptiles, you cause the metabolism to be elevated, which results in the animal needing more caloric intake to sustain muscle and fat masses. Kept too warm and the body will burn through stored calories, resulting in weight loss if insufficient amount of food is consumed. I keep my corns around 85-87°F. The higher end (87°F) is merely due to my herp room maintaining day highs from March until Nov of about 85-88°F WITH the swamp cooler running. Come winter, the room will typically drop to no cooler than 73-74°F day or night.

It's hard to judge from your photo of Juan, but to me he looks like he'd possibly be able to be fed either 1 pinkie 2x per week, 2 pinkies every 4-5 days, OR 1 small fuzzie every 5-6 days; this is based upon his weight, prey item weight, and is known as the Munson Plan - something I'd never heard of until this forum. I feed similarly to the Munson Plan, but possibly a little more frequently.

I have a set schedule of 1 pinkie every Wed and Sat for my hatchlings and juvenile small snakes. I have 3 corns within similar size and weight of Juan, snake#1 gets 2 pinkies on Wed and a single on Sat, snake #2 get 2 pinkies on Wed & Sat, snake #3 gets a small fuzzie Wed & Sat. Snake #2 & #3 are similar in size, but snake #2 randomly started struggling with fuzzies (she regurgitated twice within a 2 week period) and was dialed back to pinkies yet she's larger in length and weight. I tend to feed heavily on my young snakes until they are large enough to take small mice (hoppers/weanlings). Once they are that large they get fed once a week.

That's the long, too much info response. The short answer, I'd get Juan feeding regularly on 1 pinkie every 4 days for about a month. Then I'd possibly move to something more frequent or more in-line with the Munson Feed Plan Chart (http://medusa-corns.webs.com/feedingchart.htm) (<-- click for the chart)

[MACS76]

Thank you I have read the feeding guidelines and that is part of the reason that I am worried. I even tried live pinks tonight. He has not eaten for 2 weeks. Eyes has not changed so I do not think he is ready to shed. I have not tried fuzzies for him yet. He has only been on pinks and when I bought him they said he was eating 2 pinks a week.

[HerpsOfNM]

I'm not recalling this being pointed out to you yet...

Nanci's List of Feeding Tricks for Non-Feeders (http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131573)

[MACS76]

Have that page bookmarked already. Thank you.

[MACS76]

I have decide to bring him home today and work with him. He may not be going back to the classroom in the future. Thanks to everyone here for the advice.

[Guruofchem]

I've got a corn in my classroom as well, and have had no feeding issues, but each snake is an individual, and yours may just not like the ruckus of the classroom. Hope everything goes well, and if you really need to get him to eat, the boiled pink from Nanci's bag o'tricks works wonders. Might also be worth a vet visit, preferably with a stool sample so the vet can check for parasites.

[starsevol]

This might have been asked already, but here goes........is Juan housed by himself away from Chino? There are a ton of reasons not to house snakes together, but the biggest one is that often one will stop eating due to stress.

Sorry, but I had to ask.

[MACS76]

I've got a corn in my classroom as well, and have had no feeding issues, but each snake is an individual, and yours may just not like the ruckus of the classroom. Hope everything goes well, and if you really need to get him to eat, the boiled pink from Nanci's bag o'tricks works wonders. Might also be worth a vet visit, preferably with a stool sample so the vet can check for parasites.

Chino is happy at school and eating everything put in front of her. She is really calm with students who are afraid of snakes but want to touch her.

Juan is now at home and as soon as he is settled in I will be using the bag of tricks. I have gotten him to eat if I boil his food or heat it up in boiling water at home but not at school.

I figures I always seem to have on animal that takes extra work to take care of them ;)

[MACS76]

Juan/George ate one pink tonight I heated it up in boiling water. When I picked it up with my tongs it popped. He went right for it. He did not want a second pink (not popped). Now the question is do I need to pop the next one that I feed him?

[MACS76]

Well back to not eating anything. Will he survive? eating one pink every 2 weeks. How can he every grow at this rate? Will try lizard on Saturday if I can get on at the Tucson reptile show.