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Husbandry and Basic CareGeneral stuff about keeping and maintaining cornsnakes in captivity.
I've wanted a snake since forever, and recently was able to purchase one quite cheap on Craigslist! My (no so) little guy is two years old and three feet long, and about an inch thick.
So he's actually pretty huge, and because of that, I don't know what to feed him!
A guy at petco sold me three frozen mice (no idea what size/age) and told me to feed him all three. He got really fat and pooped three times but I feel that was too much. I think the mice were about two inches long, not including tails. Last week I fed him again, this time with a bigger, live mouse. I bought two but he only ate one. I think they were about three inches long and fatter than the frozen. I don't want to be making him sick by over or under feeding him!
No online forms I can find say anything about big corns.
The guy I bought him from had no idea about anything... He also just shed yesterday and it was mostly one piece! His eyes didn't get milky though, his scales just got rough. Is this normal? Thank you!
If you check out Nanci's page and go to her website, she has a GREAT care-sheet with a feeding chart (what your snake should be eating at what size) Actually, I'll grab the link and post it here. Hope it helps!
It is easier to weigh him on a kitchen scale and base his feeding off of weight. You can find plenty of references to the munson plan by searching the forum. You also want to stay far, far away from live mice.
From your description, you snake doesn't sound huge. It sounds like a normal sized corn snake. The average length for an email adult corn snake is four and a half feet long. Some are bigger some are smaller.
Most adult sized corns eat one adult sized mouse once a week.
By what you have described it sounds as though your snake should be eating 1 adult mouse once a week. You do not want to be feeding 3 mice a week. That will just possibly cause obesity issues. For now I would stick with 1 mouse every 7 days. In the future your may need to go to one every 10 to 14 days. Every snakes metabolism is different. Do you have any pictures of you new snake? I would love to see them.
Also, it sort of seems you went into this blindly. Please get as many books (I downloaded everything I could find onto my Kindle) as you can and study up! They are easy to care for, but there is a lot involved in setting up their viv and getting things ready for a snake BEFORE you bring it home. Since he is already there, it is better late than never. Do your homework!!!
Thanks for all the replies, guys!
Also, I did do my research, I have everything set up properly, (he lives in a 40 gallon tank with aspen bedding and a big water bowl that he likes to swim in, thermostat for a light (I can't use an uth for various reasons), and a couple hides and some fake plants), but I couldn't find anything about the feeding, and the person I got him from (and the pet store person) were no help.
Here are some pictures of him
He looks healthy and your setup sounds good. The only thing about heat lamps is that they tend to dry the air out. So it may be a good idea to mist the little guy with water during his shed cycle. Or you can provide him with a moist hide (damp moss or damp paper towel inside a hide) during shed.
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