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Help! Corn Snake refuses to eat. Any advice?

Pirate Huntress
04-02-2009, 09:38 PM
She refused to eat for 2 weeks, then escaped from her cage. She was lost for a week. The lid for the 20L gallon tank broke, but now I have a new one. Two days ago, I found her crawling towards the heater. She looks like she a lot of weight, but she still won't eat. I thought for sure she would, she didn't eat in 3 weeks! She drank a lot of water, though.

I've tried as many techniques to feeding her frozen/thawed mice as I could think of. She ate frozen/thawed mice before I even got her, which was a week before Christmas.

Here's what I tried.
- braining
- poking her with the mouse
- having the mouse "walk" around her so it actually looks alive
- wiggling the mouse above her
- leaving her with the mouse for hours

Is there anything else I could try? =/

She's a baby Corn Snake, about a foot long. I've been giving her pinky mice, I feed her in the container I got her in, let the mouse thaw out in the room I feed her in, and use feeding tongs. I use a stick on thermometer & hydrometer, one for the warm side, one for the cool side. The temperature is 85-90 on the warm side, 75-77 on the cool side. I use Care Fresh bedding.

TandJ
04-02-2009, 10:19 PM
try live???

Susielea
04-02-2009, 11:27 PM
Try heating the pinky up in hot water until it's really toasty warm, before popping it in her feeding tub, she should be in the tub already, then close the lid and cover with a towel or something, leave her for an hour before checking on her. I find a lot of little ones prefer their food warm :)

How often are you offering food? You should leave 4 to 5 days between feeding attempts, otherwise you could stress her too much and she will associate stress with food and completely refuse to feed for you.

Hope that helps, let us know if it works :)

Pirate Huntress
04-03-2009, 03:44 PM
It's just that she's been eating F/T all her life, so it doesn't make sense for her to start getting picky if her food is alive or not.

That sounds good. It might not be warm enough, so I'll try that.