5 Year Old Snake Won’t Eat

[Rosy009]

Alright so I browsed through the few 6-8 pages of threads just to see if anyone has had the same problem as me and I couldn’t find anything that matched up.

I have a corn who is about 5 1/2 years old, I got him early last summer. He is about 5 foot and is super gentle and calm. He has always been the perfect eater and just has had good health all around. He usually eats a large mouse aproximately every two weeks.

Almost a month ago, he stopped eating. 3 weeks ago I tried to feed him and he didn’t take so I left it alone. I’ve been trying a week since then and he still refuses. I thought it was where I was getting the mice. I had gotten mice from Petsmart, this is when he started refusing them. So today I got mice from Petco, this is where I usually go, and he didn’t want those either. I even tried to give him a small adult instead. Nothing. As a side-note, he did shed about a month and a half ago. So he’s not due to shed soon.

Recently he has been super active in his tank, which usually only happened when I missed the 2-week feeding day and he got impatient. But he still won’t eat. He keeps trying to get out. He continuously leans on the glass as he climbs up to the lid where he pokes around before falling over. Sometimes he can wedge himself between the top and the lid, but he can’t get it open thankfully. Because of his attempts at escape, some of his scales appear to be bent or shriveled.

I don’t know what to do. I’m worried that he will continue to refuse food and eventually escape his tank. We have dogs and he does not like them. I’m not worried about the dogs, I worried about my snake biting the dogs and the dogs reraliating too. My whole situation is kinda screwy. Anything helps!

[mcnann_fam]

From what I've read on here males will go off feeds and act nutty around mating season time. Perhaps that is the case with your boy.

[Karl_Mcknight]

he's looking for "Love in all the Wrong places........."

Males are notorious for going off food certain times in the year. My male does that as well. In fact as of now, he has not eaten in over a month. This is usually breeding behavior. Depending on where you live and temps and daylight, etc.... (Snakes can sense all that) the Breeding season is from Mid February to May.

Snakes can and sometimes do refuse food before or during a shed also. So maybe he's about to shed, or maybe he's looking for love. Who knows?

But if he's healthy otherwise, don't worry about it.

Continue to keep his cage clean, give plenty of fresh water, handle him as usual, and when he's ready to eat, he will eat.

Just for information- I have heard of corn snakes going without food for 5 months and being perfectly ok. The longest mine ever went without food was 5 weeks. (He's getting close to that now, perhaps he going for a new record?) I'm not worried about it, because I can tell he's fine.

[Rosy009]

Thanks so much! This hadn’t even occurred to me. But I kinda makes sense. Like I said this is my first Spring with him and so I never even looked into mating habits. He does seem perfectly healthy and well other than the new blemishes to his scales due to escape attempts. I will continue to keep an eye on him though.

[Rich Z]

Yeah, breeding season.

If there is anyway at all for that snake to escape from his cage, he WILL find it.

If there is anyway at all for that snake to INJURE himself in his attempts to locate a mate, he WILL do it.

So take necessary precautions.