Howdy

My family and I attended a local Reptile Expo here in the DFW area. I've wanted to add a corn snake to our family for some time now. We now have Gryff (Corn), Lizzie (Leopard Gecko), Lelu (Bearded Dragon), and Mikey (African Sulcata). I would eventually like to take Gryff to my classroom (middle school), but am giving him some time to acclimate to his new home. I do have one question that I'd like to ask regarding feeders. The breeder told me to look at the largest part of Gryff's body and double that to determine feeder size. That sound right?

Welcome to the forum. I'm not sure what the breeder of Gryff was thinking, as feeding too large a prey item can result in regurgitation. I hear snake keepers often say that if you feed a prey item no thicker than the corn's widest body part you should be fine. Most of us don't go by visual size, we weigh our snakes and then use the Munson feeding chart. The rodent breeders usually specify the mice weight to help us decide on the correct size.

The average advice is 1 to 1.5x the widest point. Corns are super stretchy though, and I've seen weeks-old hatchlings eat small fuzzies twice their width without issue. I don't recommend actually trying that, of course, but I wouldn't stress too much if it looks a tiny bit larger or smaller than the "correct" size.

Most breeders don't fuss over it much at all. I still weigh my snakes periodically to make sure I'm not underfeeding them, but I don't quite have the experience to just eyeball them at a glance like the folks who've been at it for decades.