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HUGE difference in sizes of snakes

smigon

smigon

Old enough to know better
I have two corns that are 2 years old, one I got from a breeder (Scarlett) was 25g in Jan 2013. In June of 2013 she was 75g, and I rescued one (Gus) the same age as Scarlett and he was 25g at the time. The girl I rescued him from had only fed him pinkies once a week for his whole 1.5 years, I then started him properly on the Munson plan and he has tripled in size and is on hoppers. From the beginning I had Scarlett on the Munson plan, and she is now 169g and large weanlings.

Now my question is, I just did another rescue, this guy (Boots) is only 2 years old too but is 755g!!! He is on "small" rats that are 43g each!

I know why Gus was so small, he was way underfed, but why the enormous difference in the size between Scarlett and Boots? I know they fed him once a week, but she (the mother of the kids who weren't taking care of him anymore) didn't know the history of his feedings. He is actually a bit lean, not at all overfed, his spine is visible but his sides are not sunken. He seems healthy, he is very friendly, but I am just floored at the size difference between snakes of the same age!
 
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The larger snake (755gr) is likely that big because of being fed rats. Rats are higher fat. The largest I've ever fed a Cornsnake is an XL Adult mouse. That was a Corn that had been given rats as well, and was about 800gr.
 
Thanks Heather! I know that rats are higher in fat, so that makes sense. I wonder how long he has been on rats. He really is not fat, so I am not worried about obesity, but I think that I may switch off between the largest mice and the rats she provided until they are gone. I don't want to waste the 20+ rats I got with him, but I want him to be healthy once he reaches maximum healthy weight, I agree that about 800g is good.

I just fed him after I posted the original post, he is so friendly and loves to be held, and when I put him back in with the rat (I feed inside their vivs) he went right to work on it. It has been 9 days since his last meal, and that is keeping in line with my other two so it works out perfectly.

Do you think that I have a good plan in place for him, switching off until the rats are gone then feeding only XL mice?
 
I don't really believe in feeding snakes as much as they will take so they grow as fast as possible. I like to see them get out of the more fragile baby stage, when they are on pinks/fuzzies, but a 750 gram two year old is crazy. My biggest cornsnake is Pepper, and he's 654g. He's 7, I think. He _very_ gradually gains weight at a rate of maybe 5 grams per feeding. A male that size (or female, for that matter!) looks enormous when put together with a three year old female, or two year old male. Can you imagine if the snake was 1000 or 1200 grams? And corns can and _will_ get that big, and I don't believe it's particularly healthy, especially in females.

On another note, it's easy for clutch mates to get spread out in weight. One weighs a gram or two more at hatching, sheds first, gets the first meal a week earlier than the rest of the clutch. Another is smaller- 4 grams vs 6 grams is quite a difference...If a baby takes two or three tries to get feeding- whether it just has more yolk to absorb or isn't convinced pinks are what it wants- the clutchmates who are eating draw away rapidly in weight. Then once a baby gets on fuzzies before the rest of the clutch, it's all over- the others may never catch up until they are all adults.

So given the various hatchling and even adult feeding regimes, and the variation in what the snakes, as hatchlings and juveniles will take, how fast they digest, if they are fed during blue or not- there can be a big difference in snakes fed the same way, much less one breeder vs another.
 
Yeah, this kid looks like they must have fed him rats from the beginning, not because he's fat but of how long and solid is.

What are your feelings on switching back and forth from rats to large mice every 10 days or so, then going only with mice once the rats are gone? Good idea? Bad idea?
 
Here i have very different sizes to.. from about 200 grams for a 2 year old, to the smallest, only 44 grams.

But wow.. one of 755 grams!! Do you have a picture?
 
I think that switching back and forth from rats to mice is a fine idea, so long as the snake does take mice ;) but 20 (rats) is a lot to go through.
It's all up to you, really. If he's been fed rats this long and is not overweight, I don't know what will happen if you continue. If you don't have anyone who could use the rats... then I probably would do it too, honestly.

As an aside... I would love to see a picture of your snakes :)
 
Wow!

I only have 1 adult and she's a female but She's only 625g and she has hips. She's fed one large mouse every 2 weeks. Anymore and she starts gaining weight fast.
 
Is it possible the family that owned it previously lost track of how long they'd had it? Or assumed it was a new hatchling when it was actually a year old. Yearling and even some 2 yr old corns are still pretty small and someone who doesn't know just how tiny they can be coming out of the egg could easily be fooled.
 
I take it you don't have anything else that eats rats, huh? Anyone else in the area have anything that eats rats?
(Maybe you should get a Carpet Python...kidding...sorta) ;)
Maybe space out the rat feedings to every 3rd or 4th meal.

I fostered a pair of snakes for someone, while I helped him find a home for them. He fed them rats, since they were little (7 years) and the male was just over 1,100 grams. He was not fat, just had grown big, to compensate for the larger food prey size given.
I like to feed my babies to get them to grow, but once they approach adulthood, I slow them down.

The only Corns (and a Kingsnake) that I have fed XL Adult mice to, are ones that are already over 600-700 grams. Everyone else gets a large adult mouse.
 
The classic I recently bought as an 8 year old, was fed small rats and she was fairly big at around 550g. Very healthy though, not fat. The owner of the reptile store feeds all of his corns rats, and has been trying to get me to convert for a while lol.
 
I will post a pic this weekend, I have to work but I will see if I can get one up. I will show the differences in their sizes.
 
How big are the rats? My biggest boa is still only about 400g and I'm feeding him pups. I don't try to feed them large prey and make them grow fast.

I'd say just use them. I questioned my vet about feeding rats to corns, since I have corns and boas. Now, this guy is very well respected herp vet, has raised thousands of corns for more than 25 years, and while I'm sure that many people here will disagree, but I trust him, and he says it makes zero difference whether you feed mice or rats. He was emphatic about this (and then went on to explain why; however, his explanation went way into the physiology of digestion in corns and hence, way over my head:))
 
I have a very strict rat eater, he seriously acts like even a dead mouse is going to murder him, he was hatched here and I've tried everything in the book to get him switched, it just isn't going to happen, however he is at a happy adult size and I feed him 1 rat pup (or weaned depending on what the sizes in the bag are like) every 10-14 days, he's not overweight, he is in really great condition. I don't think that feeding rats is a problem...if it's done properly, but the same can be said for feeding mice.
 
Joba said:
How big are the rats? My biggest boa is still only about 400g and I'm feeding him pups. I don't try to feed them large prey and make them grow fast.
Click to expand...

"He is on "small" rats that are 43g each!"
 
I have switched dedicated rat eaters to mice, but it's difficult. I have two here now (both caused by feeding rat pinks during a feeding strike) that are on mice at the moment- hopefully permanently...It takes a lot of rat brain scenting on mice. The Dingo switched to unscented "dirty" mice from a local breeder. (They weren't really dirty- just more mouse-smelly than the pure white mice from various commercial breeders).
 
Thanks Nanci, I will keep that in mind, I will go get some XL mice for his next feed, see how that goes.
 
Sorry, no pics yet, our casino had a golf open this weekend and I ended up working late yesterday and today, I am so tired I haven't had time for the pics. I will take them this week, I work the Superbowl today and then am off for 4 days! Woohoo!
 
smigon said:
Sorry, no pics yet, our casino had a golf open this weekend and I ended up working late yesterday and today, I am so tired I haven't had time for the pics. I will take them this week, I work the Superbowl today and then am off for 4 days! Woohoo!
Click to expand...

Wait till next year when we have the Phoenix Open and the Superbowl on the same weekend! That should be pretty crazy.
 
smigon said:
I have two corns that are 2 years old, one I got from a breeder (Scarlett) was 25g in Jan 2013. In June of 2013 she was 75g, and I rescued one (Gus) the same age as Scarlett and he was 25g at the time. The girl I rescued him from had only fed him pinkies once a week for his whole 1.5 years, I then started him properly on the Munson plan and he has tripled in size and is on hoppers. From the beginning I had Scarlett on the Munson plan, and she is now 169g and large weanlings.

Now my question is, I just did another rescue, this guy (Boots) is only 2 years old too but is 755g!!! He is on "small" rats that are 43g each!

I know why Gus was so small, he was way underfed, but why the enormous difference in the size between Scarlett and Boots? I know they fed him once a week, but she (the mother of the kids who weren't taking care of him anymore) didn't know the history of his feedings. He is actually a bit lean, not at all overfed, his spine is visible but his sides are not sunken. He seems healthy, he is very friendly, but I am just floored at the size difference between snakes of the same age!
Click to expand...



Ten years or so back when I had a mailorder nursery I'd make the trip over to the Apopka Fl. area and visited thousands of plant nurseries. Of particuliar interest were visits to nurseries which specialized in micro-propagation, tissue culture, in-vitro, (collectively "cloning")-- taking a single plant selected for a variety of qualities all-in-one --and turning it into millions . So there they were, millions of baby plants in 72 or 144 count cell trays, all which were clones of the original parent plant. Grown in temperature controlled, light controlled, water & overhead-applied-liquid-nutrient-solutions-- very controlled conditions. Even then there would be sports and oddballs which would grow in clockwise whorls, counter-clockwise whorls, sport variegation when the parent was not variegated, some would grow up at astonishing speeds, others could sit there for 9 months and never grow at all, and a multitude of other anomalous growth habits could be seen when going through miles of paths between growing benches. And while everything I've just described is culture, each individual clone had a little bit of natural variation. I see this in all living organisms. Even single celled organisms have the occasional sport or mutation. It is inescapable. So it's not you or how you are culturing your cornsnakes. It's the nature of the individual.
 
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