My 4 month old corn wont kill before he eats?

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of an intro but i suck at introductions, so I just wont bother.

New to snakes... But my lil buddy has been a champ so far!

One problem:

He eats fuzzies alive!

(sorry for the graphics)

Normally he is all fine and dandy and will constrict a smaller pinky/ fuzzy and kill them before eating... But last feeding and today (i just started with actual fuzzies) he decided to just go butt first, and eat the squirming fuzzy! The mouse was squeaking and pawing as his nose went in lil buddies mouth!!!!!!!! I couldn't watch (and normally I dont care about this sort of thing)!

What should I do?

Im thinking I should just keep with the smaller fuzzies and or double pinkies till he gets a little bigger and stronger?

Anyone have any input on this?

Thanks,
Andrew

Have you tried feeding frozen/thawed mice?

Yea for the first 2.5 months I did... but I feel that a real snake should be killing its prey, not eating prekilled frozen mice... With that being said, maybe I just have to wait till he figures out how to get a good constriction?

So are you going to feed live when it's eating adult mice?

Well... I realize there is a risk with scratching and such. is it really a terrible idea to only feed them live mice?

aka is the rumor ive been hearing: (Corns not accepting frozen mice after only being fed live mice) is true?

A "real" snake? So what do most of the members of this forum have?

Rubber snakes? Sorry OP we can't help you, we don't have "real" snakes like you, just imaginary ones :/

If you don't want to use frozen you can kill them yourself. My corn snake had no problem taking pre-killed fresh mice. She still tries to kill them most of the time.

hahaha no i mean like one that lives in the wild!

Originally Posted by alan

If you don't want to use frozen you can kill them yourself. My corn snake had no problem taking pre-killed fresh mice. She still tries to kill them most of the time.

Maybe Ill just do that...

Well, scratching and biting mean a risk of scars and infection - maybe losing an eye if you get unlucky. An adult mouse can do a lot of damage to a snake and you won't necessarily be fast enough to stop it happening. Live food's an extra risk as your chap is deciding that he doesn't have to waste energy by killing first (as a cold-blooded animal, he'll only expend energy on the essentials). In a year's time, he could take a couple of hefty bites before he realises that he's found one that intends to fight back and has the teeth to back it up. It's not worth the risk, really.

A Corn's no less of a snake because of how or what it eats - that's a human perception. Frozen/thawed or live, it doesn't affect the Corn either way. Corns live to grand old ages having never seen a live mouse. Is a dog "less of a dog" because it eats vet formula dry food all its life, rather than raw hunks of cow?

Although its unusual, a captive-bred Corn is a pet and not a wild animal. You don't have to try and force it to behave like it would in the wild. In the wild, it would have an unlimited amount of space to hunt the mouse and move around it if it decided to fight back. In captivity, they have a limited amount of space and will be forced into contact with the mouse without the room to hunt/manoeuvre as they need to, to avoid injury.

There can be issues swapping from live to frozen, but you won't know unless you try. Many won't have a problem.

There's also the fuzzy to consider. I know it sounds daft, but that's a live animal as well and you need to think about minimising its suffering. Bit of an odd concept for a food animal I know, but being eaten alive is really unnecessary suffering.