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Husbandry and Basic Care General stuff about keeping and maintaining cornsnakes in captivity.

Eating aspen???
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Old 07-17-2002, 03:18 PM   #1
Celeste
Eating aspen???

Okay, I just fed my normal female corn yesterday. She took the food readily - so readily that she swallowed a bit of aspen along with the mouse. She seems to be doing fine, but I'm worried that the semi-sharp peices will cause problems. I've already tried feeding her in a seperate tank with newsaper, and it didn't work. She was hurting herself in her attempts to get out of the small enclosure. I don't have another, bigger seperate tank that doesn't have aspen in it, and I'm not going to take the aspen out of her tank just when she eats. My mother won't let me feed her on a table as she free-roams, she says its too creepy to see Angel eat. So I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me about aspen being ingested.
First of all, is there really a problem in the first place? Is aspen harmful for them to swallow even if its just one or two dull, fluffy, small peices? If it is harmful, how much of it does it take for it to be problematic? Thanks for any help in advance If need be, I'll change her bedding. Anything for corns
 
Old 07-17-2002, 03:44 PM   #2
Alicia
She should be fine. Just make sure she has her normal bowel movement after her feeding. Aspen is pretty soft when it gets moist so it should pass thru just fine. I also have some that won't eat in a seperate enclosure so I use a paper towel, newspaper or even a plastic lid to feed on in their home. This helps reduce the risk of ingesting too much substrate.
 
Old 07-17-2002, 03:49 PM   #3
Jimmy C.
Hi Celeste,
I am not sure of the age/size of your snake. If it is an adult I dont think that you should be too worried. It should pass through in a few days.
This is not to say that it is ok for them to eat Aspen. They cant digest it. If you cant get a second container as a feeding container, you could try putting a paper plate or a piece of cardboard as a feeding platform in the cage.
I hope that this helps.
Jimmy C.
 
Old 08-01-2002, 11:02 AM   #4
Celeste
Hey, thankx for the replies. She's fine, and I found a possible solution. It may seem weird, but she only spends less than half of her time on the ground. She is the climbing champion of the corn-world (At least, that's what I tell her) I tried wiggling the mouse up top and then setting it on the tree, and geuss who came up to eat it! After she was done she sat sunning for a while before climbing down for a drink.
By the way, I'm trying to give her variety in her diet. I've been giving mice mixed with some weanling rats, and even some quail eggs, but I was wondering what type of live birds she can eat. Obviously, quail for one but what else? And is it right to feed her an anole now and then? I give her one every three months along with her regular mouse as a treat. Any help is wonderful.
 
Old 08-01-2002, 11:10 AM   #5
Jimmy C.
Hey Celeste,
How big is your snake?? A quail sounds HUGH.
Jimmy C.
 
Old 08-02-2002, 12:17 PM   #6
srw3897
Aspen

Do not worry when aspen is eaten it breaks down into fibers in the digestive tract.

My corn has done this before.
DON'T WORRY
 
Old 08-02-2002, 04:24 PM   #7
bmm
hmm

I wouldn't be feeding ANY anoles to any of my corns.

Anoles can be full of all kinds of things that you don't want in your snake. I don't really even see the point of feeding quial eggs...as almost all adult corns, even in the wild eat rodents. And I have never heard of a corn eating a live bird.....not to say it never happens but why do it?

Rodents are not only readily available, but healthy and more than enough for a cornsnake, rats are great too! I would stick to rats and mice. The other issue is the fact that one day you might feed your snake a anole or "live" bird and she/he will never want to eat mice or rats again.
bmm
 
Old 08-02-2002, 06:48 PM   #8
pinatamonkey
May I ask why you want to feed different things? Corns do perfectly well on a diet of mice and rats.

Anoles (lizards in general) carry parasites that can be transmitted to your snake. Freezing the lizard kills most of them, but some can still survive.

Live birds also carry diseases. And poultry diets cause really bad smelling poo.
 
Old 08-05-2002, 07:54 PM   #9
Nate
Aspen, E guttata diet variance, emotions

Hi there, quite a series of places we are going with this one!
Sounds like your main concern is taken care of with the cornsnake eating the meal up in the branches. Regarding ingestion of aspen or bark, probably not something you want to make a habit of, but yeah, it will go through the animal and in some cases get partially digested perhaps. In nature, sharp bones, undigested portions of meals get covered with soft fur often .. just check the scat loads from varoiuis kinds of wildlife... the sharp portions get coverd so it can easily zip through the body of the predator whatever species.
Regarding cornsnake diet, some refuse to take mice right off the back so there are plenty of flexible people with interesting ideas who use scents and various meal options to get that little baby snake to grab that first pinky. In nature, cornsnakes are in the ratsnake group (duh) and they are constrictors and although they may climb and take birds (yeah, they do, and they are opportunistic and may reach over 6 feet in some rare instances but mostly 4-5 feet.) since they are opportunistic, and their eggs,
they do do well on the mousies and rat diets. So if you feed thawed out of the freezer (be sure to thaw completely) no problemo... no or minimal internal parasites...which I believe one writer was alluding to. You start messing with lizards you do increase the chances for those types of parasites. Some people have no problem with snakes that have normal loads of internal gut parasites and do little or nothing about it and have no problems.. and others go nuts and hold wars on them completely eliminating them from their captive colonies. So it does depend on who you talk to.
Neat site. When I have concerns about my little expensive guys and aspen, I just feed them in a box and put that in the cage.
When done, they can crawl out but if they are little, watch it, I have had hatchlings grab ea other and die from being engulfed.
Regarding the biggest corns, South Carolina and North Carolina
reliable estimates of about 6 feet plus... I know one fellow who found a six foot six incher. Beat the national record (Peterson Field Guide) to Reptiles and Amphibians) by about 6 inches.
Neat site this is.
 
Old 08-10-2002, 09:40 PM   #10
Celeste
Okay, Jimmy, to answer your question the first thing is: I'm sorry, but I meant to say I am now feeding JUVENILE quail. (Yes, I've given her a couple every once in a while now. I've also seen birds labeled as "button quail", and they were tiny, but because I don't know where they come from I don't know if they would be in the corn's range. They might be totally unnatural to poor Angel, who might end up getting beat up by the mini bird. So I give her infant quail
To bmm and pinatamonkey: I sometimes feed different prey items because a) my snake loves it, and always happily eats mice when I ask her to, even after the occasinal quial egg or lizard and b) it only seems natural to give her different things. To quote the Loves -
"Our favorite culprit is the syndrome of captivity that could be dubbed 'limited freedom of choice.' It ends up working its way into a large percentage of the answers we give to people by phone and print. Simply put, MOST captive situations (we're including the bulging ranks of new people keeping corn snakes in our assesment of MOST) do not offer the voluntary range of daily environmental choices available in the wild."


Considering that this quote came from the chapter about Diseases and Disorders, under the title of "Stress and the Unknown," I think its safe to assume that giving corns a slight variety of diet will do them no harm. You also have to remember that I have given my snake a vet check after I started varying her diet, and he gave the full "go-ahead" with breeding. She was perfectly fine.
Yeah, corns do fine on a diet of mice and rats. But hey, I know people who, every day for the entire school year, eat a sandwhich and a drink. That's it. I've been to summer camps where every breakfast, someone would have Frosted Flakes; every lunch, they had macaroni and cheese; and every dinner, they had soup and some bread. That was what they had EVERY DAY for months on end. Yeah, they did fine. Yeah, they were happy and energized every day. But don't you think that they would have appreciated a CHANGE? I know my snake is always delighted to wander upon the eggs I hide in her cage. (I have now gotten another hide, which I put the eggs on top of so she doesn't eay aspen. It takes her a full fifteen minutes sometimes to crawl around and find them)
So I geuss all I can say as to bmm's question of "why do it?" is that my pet is loving the heck out of it, is healthy and I just think it is more interesting giving her diff things. I'm not positive, but I would say that it helps to keep her exercising. She's a very active hunter, on the ground and (especially) in the trees. My own particular corn adores climbing, so if she were in the wild I assume that she would wander upon some bird eggs or chicks every now and then.
 

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