Corn snake ate rat to hips then spit it out!

Originally Posted by jreiakvam

I have two thermometers, one on the far end on the cool side and the other on the far side of the warm side

Are they digital thermometers with probes or dial thermometers? Where on each side are they placed? (on the substrate? on the sides of the viv?)

After reading your post again, you may want to bump up your temps. I set my thermostats on the UTHs to 86°, it keeps the top of the substrate at about 85° and the cool end at about 75° which are more ideal for corns.

Also, corns don't need heat lamps, they dry out the viv and are dangerous in starting fires or burning the snake. Corns are a breed that prefer the belly heat of your UTH to digest, they are not basking snakes.

No corn snake needs rats, the previous owner needed educating on proper care for the species. Frankly, I'm not sure the vet doesn't as well. Could you post a photo of your snake? If it's as big around as a small rat, I'm worried it may be fat.

Originally Posted by smigon

After reading your post again, you may want to bump up your temps. I set my thermostats on the UTHs to 86°, it keeps the top of the substrate at about 85° and the cool end at about 75° which are more ideal for corns.

Also, corns don't need heat lamps, they dry out the viv and are dangerous in starting fires or burning the snake. Corns are a breed that prefer the belly heat of your UTH to digest, they are not basking snakes.

It's hard to know what do to because everything i research says something different!

Originally Posted by jreiakvam

It's hard to know what do to because everything i research says something different!

You have people with decades of experience keeping hundreds of corn snakes here. I will take the consensus advice you get on this message board over any care sheet on the web. If your temperatures are warm enough for digestion, that is not the issue at hand, though you might benefit from getting them dialed in. The foremost issue that I see is that you are feeding a corn snake small rats. I currenlty have 54 non-breeding adult corn snakes that are fed a small mouse weekly, some alternate a hopper. A small mouse weighs 13 to 18 grams. This is plenty of food for maintenance. A small rat weighs between 45 and 85 grams. Fed weekly, that is guaranteed to make your snake fat.

Originally Posted by smigon

Rats are more fattening that mice, and Nanci is right, one large mouse every 2-3 weeks is plenty even if it doesn't seem like enough.

What does she weigh?

Well thats good to know! I don't want her to get obese.
I don't really have a way to weight her so I'm not sure.

Post a photo, please. If it's really bad, we can tell.

Originally Posted by Chip

Post a photo, please. If it's really bad, we can tell.

I can't seem to figure out to get a picture on, it wont accept any saying they are too big. I'll work on it

Originally Posted by Chip

Post a photo, please. If it's really bad, we can tell.

I created a photo album hopefully you can access!

If it's this album consisting of one photo of the anterior portion of the snake (http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/alb...ictureid=15551), then I found it. However, it is the other end of the snake that fat tends to build up on, not the the front half.