My 4 month old corn wont kill before he eats?

Originally Posted by danielle

One more thing to add is snakes don't have an instinct to kill and instead an instinct to eat which are wo different things. In the wild they have to kill to eat and in captivity they don't

sorry , but i think you're wrong. both my snakes new how to constrict a mouse and at the petshop they were fed frozen/thawed. so they do have and instinct to kill and to eat. and with expirience they become perfect killers as is doing my ball. (the mouse doesn't feel lots of pain cause she kills them in less then 30seconds usually )

sorry , but i think you're wrong.

Come back to us when your Corn Snake keeps his dinner down for more than a week. At the moment you have a 50:50 success rate with feeding, so I don't think your way of doing things is as successful as you're suggesting here.

If the Corn was fed f/t at the shop, maybe the switch to live is causing its repeated regurges?

Captive snakes don't need to constrict or kill, so many don't (although I have a couple that constrict f/t like crazy). They're cold-blooded animals and energy is their most precious resource. They don't need to waste it "killing"/constricting f/t mice, so generally, they won't.

you know bitsy you're one of the few who never talked crap to me on this forum and i respect you. BUT you over reacted here budy , My corn never regurged after a week, he regurgs after 4 - 6 weeks. its not entirly my fault the petshop had a corn that looked like 6months old at the age of 1year6months and he found someone like me who never owned snakes to sell it to.

getting back to success rate, i have a 100% success rate with my ball python , never failed to eat, never regurged, kills its prey in less then 2mins once in the viv. and please don't talk about bad temps. my ball python has bed temps too, she doesn't complain.

another point i didn't say anything regurding constrict or kill, thats the snake's choice. but they have the instinct to kill either by constriction or whatever (biting there head/neck etc ) again my ball python was on f/t too and she was switched to live without any probs. so if you're saying my corn keeps down his meal for a weak makes it 50:50 then my success rate is is 90:10 since my corn regurged 5times in 6months. and 100 with the ball. so i think my opinion does count

but ok , if i have a regurging snake makes me a n00b here and my opinions counts 0 as long as my corn is regurging then feel free to ignore me or whatever.

I think your confusing an instinct to kill with an instinct to eat. Yes snakes in the wild kill to eat, but their not killing for the sake of murdering a mouse which is what "kill" means. They eat via constricting their prey, but to them this is eating not killing if that makes sense

I think cornsnakes constrict as needed. I’ve seen baby snakes take live pinkies butt first. The pinkie is waving his arms and screaming all the way down. But the mouse doesn’t really fight back or run away. My adults get frozen thawed. I usually will just throw the mouse in and they come over and swallow it. But if I hang on with a pair of forceps the will coil around it. If I pull and fight back the coil and squeeze harder. They will put only as much effort into it as is necessary.

AWsneer, I would feed your snake f/t or p/k. In the wild a snake would eat live, but most common snakes in the reptile trade take very well to f/t food items. They are no different than live as far as nutrients. Petco and Petsmart have f/t items.

David

Originally Posted by DarkSmoke

getting back to success rate, i have a 100% success rate with my ball python , never failed to eat, never regurged, kills its prey in less then 2mins once in the viv. and please don't talk about bad temps. my ball python has bed temps too, she doesn't complain.

How big is the Ball? What's the smallest feeding you have given it?

Originally Posted by snakemaster24

AWsneer, I would feed your snake f/t or p/k. In the wild a snake would eat live, but most common snakes in the reptile trade take very well to f/t food items. They are no different than live as far as nutrients. Petco and Petsmart have f/t items.

David

I am going to feed him a p/k on saturday... so we will see how that goes!

AWSneer, besides all the stated upsides to feeding f/t, I feel like it also makes the snakes much more handleable. Not a single one of my ten corns looks at my fingers like a snack when I go to pick them up. I know it's cool to watch snakes take down live prey, but the day you find one of your otherwise healthy babies dead with a green stomach (vet determined live mouse was the cause) you'll switch to and swear by f/t mice

Originally Posted by DarkSmoke

sorry , but i think you're wrong. both my snakes new how to constrict a mouse and at the petshop they were fed frozen/thawed. so they do have and instinct to kill and to eat. and with expirience they become perfect killers as is doing my ball. (the mouse doesn't feel lots of pain cause she kills them in less then 30seconds usually )

...wonders why someone would switch a snake from f/t to live KNOWING the possible risks of injury, parasites and cruelty to the mouse......

UNLESS of course the snakes welfare is less important than the puedo-sexual thrill of watching a terrified little animal get its life slowly snuffed out.....

I loathe people who CHOOSE to feed live...