Growth question

[Mark16]

Okay my snake is about 4 months old now. He used to eat little parts of pinkies. Now he eats whole pinkies. When he is about a year old how big will he get? i do not know his actual size and all just his length. He is about oh i don't know, 15 inches.

[KDRGM]

hello there Mark, i got my first 07 on the 5/4/08 he was about 5-6 inches long, i've had him 9 months now and he is 2ft+ ( the shop got him on 17/3/08 or thats the date on his feed chart but dont know if it birth date or like i sed date shop got him)
http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/qq219/KDRGM/GEDC0032.jpg

http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/qq219/KDRGM/GEDC0029.jpg

these pics are about 2 months old !!

whereas my other 07 with same date for shop(17/3/08) ....... i got him on 14/5/08 about 4-6 inch wen i got him , he now 18-20 inches long they are both on 2 pinkies but i am about to up feeds to fuzzies for the big fella n small fuzzy for the lil fella it will be the 1st time they had fuzzies

all snakes are diferent i know but i hope this gives you some sort of guideline




T.C.



KEV

[plausibledenial]

Growth can be affected by how much you're feeding him - are you following something similar to the munson plan (http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50106)? What he was on sounds a bit small - my snake was a month old and eating whole pinks.

[Mark16]

Well at first my teacher (who i bought him from) said to feed him little slices of a pinky. 1/3 of a pinky a week. About 2 weeks later i tried a whole pinky and he ate it. So now i have been feeding him for 3 times now a full size pinky. I do not know his weight right now so i don't know how much to feed him right now. I will weigh him sometime this week to find out how much exactly to feed. Thank you bought for your imput. :)

[Mark16]

Thank you both for your imput. Not bought. sorry

[MyLittleGuyCyrus]

Well, I would recommend one pinky for now....one thing you can do to kinda judge how it is going is feed him and see if he still has a lump after 24 hours. If he does, one pinky is probably perfect.

I would really, really recommend weighing him so that you don't over feed him......you don't want a regurge on your hands.

I follow the Munson Plan and I think it is easy and takes all the guess work and worring out of what to do!!

THE MUNSON PLAN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-When they're on single pinks (2-3g), I feed every 5-6 days. (Snake = 4-15g)
-Double pinks (3g x 2) every 5-6 days. (Snake = 16-23g)
-Small fuzzies (5-7g) every 6-7 days. (Snake = 24-30g)
-Regular fuzzies (7-9g) every 6-7 days (Snake = 30-50g)
-Hoppers (9-12g) every 6-7 days (Snake = 51-90g)
-Weaned (14-20g) every 7 days (Snake = 91-170g)
-Adult (20-30g) every 7-x days (Snake = 170+) See below.

Note: Adult females are fed more frequently than adult males (especially following brumation). Adult females are fed every 7-12 days; adult males are fed every 11-14 days.

I would invest in a scale...I found mine at Target for $25!


Hope this helps!

[Mark16]

Yeah i feed him one pinky every week. Aftert 24 hours he has i think a really small hump in his stomach.

[MyLittleGuyCyrus]

Then you are probably ok right now!! Better to go slow then too fast, the regurges are bad business! Hope this all helped you!

[Mark16]

okay yes it did. But i have another question with the feeding. For doubling the pinkies do i have to? like can i just use a pretty small fuzzy instead?

[MyLittleGuyCyrus]

Well, I would do exactly as told on the Munson Scale. That was created by someone who knows their business. I am not exaclty sure why you move to 2 pinkies then move to fuzzys. My educated guess would be that a fuzzy is still too big for the snake, but is hungry enough to need 2 pinkies.

[StormRose]

That's exactly it. :)

It's also a little easier for the snake to digest two smaller prey items than one larger one.

[Mark16]

Um. If i were to try a fuzzy instead, because it would be cheaper than buying two pinkies, could it hurt my snake?

[StormRose]

Yes, if the fuzzy were too big for his stomach to hold, or for him to digest he'll regurge it, and that's bad. It's much safer to feed smaller than larger if you're not sure what he can handle.

The best way to figure it out is to weigh him and follow the Munson plan. You can get a postal scale off ebay for really cheap if you don't have one, I think I paid $10 for mine with shipping. It's so much better to go by the weight of the snake when you're feeding than the length because it's a lot more reliable.

[Mark16]

Can the scale be a produce scale, for like veggies?

[StormRose]

As long as it measures in grams, and can go down to under 10g.

[Mark16]

How many grams is 1/4 of an ounce? The scale did ounces not grams... :(

[MyLittleGuyCyrus]

That would be approximately 7 grams. Which means your little guy only needs one pinky at every feeding. He won't need two pinks until he is 16 grams. Hope this helps!