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Health Issues/Feeding Problems Anything related to general or specific health problems. Issues having to do with feeding problems or tips.

New member - Older snake issues?
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Old 09-17-2010, 04:30 PM   #1
*Sunny*
New member - Older snake issues?

I have been scouring the internet for answers and stumbled across this forum, hopefully someone here will shed some light on my problem.

I believe that my main problem is that my snake is aging, and perhaps there isn't much that I can do.

I have what I believe to be a male corn snake (not 100% sure) who is about 15 years old. I have been told that corn snakes live 12-15 years, so by that account he is an "old" snake, but some websites quote the lifespan to be up to the 30s so by that account he is just "middle-aged".

Anyway, my snake has stopped eating every year around breeding season, which has always been normal. However, in the past 4 years or so, he has stopped eating earlier and it's much longer before he starts to eat again. In the past he just ate less, and now he stops eating completely. Every year he gets worse. Last year he stopped eating at about October and didn't eat on his own again until April/May. I know that not eating for several months may be normal but in the past few years he stops eating completely for 6-7 months or more.

During this time, understandably, he becomes incredibly weak. The past 2-3 years I have taken to force-feeding him a calorie supplement when he refuses to eat on his own. This past winter he became so weak he couldn't even shed on his own. He became emaciated despite my best efforts to feed him via calorie supplement.

I have tried everything to get him to eat in the past few years. I have double-checked the temperature and humidity, I have experimented with heat lamps/heat pads and lighting, I have changed the decor and substrate, and I have experimented with different sized tanks. I have tried different types of food, frozen or live. Nothing will get him to eat on his own.

However, every year in the spring, he begins to eat on his own again and eats with no problems until the fall, where he suddenly refuses to eat at all for 6+ months. Right now he is eating with no problems whatsoever.

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. He was never a picky eater growing up, this all came about in the past few years, and nothing about his set-up had changed to cause this (as far as I am aware).

I have no idea if this is just a case of an aging snake, or if there is something I can do so that he doesn't starve himself to death. I don't know what the signs are of a snake aging.

I have been on the prowl for a veterinarian in my area, but so far there are plenty that will consent to seeing exotics but have no real experience with snakes.

Please give me any suggestions on how to get my snake to eat this winter, I would be heartbroken if he died.
 
Old 09-17-2010, 06:13 PM   #2
Nanci
My first thought is any vet can o a fecal and tell you if he has parasites.

I wonder if it would be advisable to brumate him during the winter and slow his metabolism down, so not use up the calories, plus give him a definite start eating signal to follow when you warmed him back up in the spring.

Have you tried tempting him with rat pinks?
 
Old 09-18-2010, 05:31 AM   #3
bitsy
15 years is about right for a Corn but they can go on for a way after that. My 22 year old is increasingly picky about food but his regular annual fasts have stayed the same length - about 8 weeks. However, I did once have him go for 7 months without food when I moved (he doesn't like change).

I think I'd go with Nanci's advice. If he's a reasonable body weight beforehand, try brumating him. Will he eat two food items at a time when he does eat? That might be a way of building him up in preparation. It's possible that his metabolism is trying to get into that wild-type routine, where not eating wouldn't be a problem as activity is minimal during the brumation period.
 
Old 09-19-2010, 11:28 AM   #4
*Sunny*
@ Nanci

I have no experience in burmating...But I will definitely look into it. Is there a link on the site somewhere with instructions?

I did try rat pinkies once, he had no interest. He was de-wormed once as a baby, when I took him to a vet for mite treatment.

@Bitsy He does typically eat several prey items at once. He can eat 2-3 adult mice in one go but my regular petstore was out of adult mice, so last time he ate was 4 f/t hoppers.

Generally, what are the signs of an older corn aging? What are the signs of a snake suffering? I will certainly try the burmating but I'm worried about becoming one of those people who are keeping a snake alive who is suffering.
 
Old 09-19-2010, 05:47 PM   #5
bitsy
Are there any other changes in his behaviour or character? Is rhere anything other than extended periods of food refusal that make you think he has a problem?

My old male has become increasingly sedentary. He likes to spend much of his time under his favourite hide and he doesn't take kindly to being removed for feeding and cleaning (and I've taken to using gloves!).

He can be a wee bit picky about feeding. He usually eats outside his viv in a separate feeding tank, but sometimes I have to leave the defrosted mouse in his viv overnight for him to eat - it'll be gone in the morning. He did go through a phase where I had to hand feed him for 6 months, by dangling the food in front of him with tongs and making it wiggle a bit so he could strike at it. Goodness knows why - he'd always eaten defrost when it was put down in front of him before that and had never been an active striker. He hasn't done it since.

The centres of both his eyes are permanently cloudy. The vet says that these are the equivalent of cataracts and will be making him largely blind. There's no treatment but the vet said that as snakes tend to use other senses such as heat and vibration detection, the loss wouldn't make a huge difference to him in the controlled environment of a viv. The vet was adamant that it wouldn't affect the quality of his life enough to warrant euthanisation.

He's gradually become more cranky over the years as well. He was never a huge fan of being handled but is much less tolerant than before and the gloves come in handly for both of us!

In short, I tend to view him as being like an old dog. He likes to be left in peace to nap in his favourite spot and not be bothered. He can be a bit choosy over eating and sometimes needs to be humoured to make it work. Some physical problems are emerging but nothing that needs to worry me unduly as long as I keep an eye open for deterioration or further changes.
 
Old 09-19-2010, 08:30 PM   #6
*Sunny*
No real changes in his behavior when he's eating. He's always been friendly and I've always been able to handle him -- Just last year (when he was regularly eating) my little sister was able to take him to school for a project where he was handled by tons of kids and everything.

I feel that he does hide a bit more than usual, and when he stops eating I found that he tends to be very sedentary. As in, every time I come home I feel like he's in the exact same spot for days on end -- I have to get him out or touch him to make sure he's still alive.

Even when he's not eating, he certainly acts like he's hungry! He responds to movement and when he hears me open his cage he comes to investigate. I've always fed him inside his cage because I use newspaper as substrate. But he refuses all food --I've dangled with tongs, tried different prey items, etc and he ignores them all and at times almost acts afraid of the prey item. But he acts like he's hungry all the time, he just won't eat.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that even though he won't be feeding for 6+ months, he is still shedding and defecating on a regular basis. I don't know how he's able to defecate with nothing in him besides the calorie supplement, and he would defecate regularly during this time even before I started with the calorie supplement. I think that's how he becomes so weak and emaciated during this time.

I do wonder sometimes if he's beginning to develop cataracts because once in a while his eyes will look cloudy.

I just wonder every winter if I should take him to the vet to have him put down because he just becomes so weak and skinny, but then somehow every spring he begins to eat again and is completely normal.
 
Old 09-19-2010, 10:31 PM   #7
wstphal
Can you try to alter his environment so he thinks summer doesn't end? I mean, a fullspectrum light not directly over his viv but somewhere close so it fools him into thinking the days are still nice and long? He doesn't need UV but a lamp that produces something close to natural spectrum visible light, on a timer to give him 12 hours of fake daylight might fool his body into thinking it's still summer and still time to eat.

Then if you decide to brumate, when you are ready, shut the light off, wait several weeks to make sure he has pooped out his last meal (in case lower temps make him not poop you don't want him to retain the poop), and lower the temperatures. Kathy Love's book explains what the correct temperatures are, I don't know them. In natural brumation in the wild they don't eat but they may seek out water on warmer days, so you want to make sure he still has fresh water.

I hope this helps. I know something about photoperiod manipulation in that I have read lab protocols for it for other types of animals, and I can't see that extending his summer eating period later into the year would hurt him any. At least then maybe his fasting period would be shorter.
 
Old 09-20-2010, 11:45 AM   #8
*Sunny*
He tends to freak out when there is light over his cage. When I was experimenting with different types of light I bought a heat lamp, and he seemed really agitated whenever I turned it on. When he was younger he had a full spectrum light because at the time I was told they needed it, but eventually stopped using it because he didn't like light on his cage very much. But if it's the difference between him starving to death and seeming agitated, I suppose the latter is the best course of action.

One question: How do you lower the temperature of his cage? The only way I could lower the temperature is to unplug his heating pad....and I don't know if it's a good idea to take away all sources of heat even for just a few weeks.
 
Old 09-20-2010, 01:59 PM   #9
bitsy
Are you using a thermostat? You should just be able to turn it down to lower the temp of the mat.

Having said that, I believe that comfortable low temps in a house for humans, aren't low enough to induce/maintain brumation in Corns. That's one reason I've never tried it. The only outside space I have is the garage and as they'd continue to need low background heat from their mats, I'd have to hook up a power line just for that.
 

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