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Never grew

M

MsCarter

New member
Hello all,
I'm a little concerned about my corn snake as he is about 3-4 years old and not much bigger than he was as a baby when I purchased him.
I got him at a local pet store and honestly I knew very little about snakes. I was told by the people who sold him to me that as long as I had a 10 gallon tank and made sure to give him a thawed out frozen pinky mouse weekly he would be fine, and that was pretty much all there was to caring for him other than keeping fresh water available and cleaning his cage every so often. So that is what I have been doing for 3years. Recently I walked through the reptile section at another pet store and noticed their corn snakes are much much bigger than mine. I was shocked to discover they were only a fraction of the age as mine! I feel horrible! And it is the last time I will ever take advice from a pet store or obtain a pet without doing my own research first. I want him to be happy! I'm getting him a larger tank asap and a undertank heating pad for one side of his tank. Is there other things I should be doing? He is eating fuzzies now (once a week), I know they are nocturnal but I still cut a light on for him a few hours every day, he has a lot he uses to help him shed, a nice little hide out cave, and I use a wood shaving substrate that says it is for snakes. Please tell me if I'm doing something wrong.
Sorry for the long comment I just really feel like a horrible snake owner at this point and want to do everything I can to make it right for him.
 
Hi and welcome!

The first thing to say is that while it certainly isn't good that he's only been on pinkies until now, you have recognised the problem in time to fix it. Chances are his growth is permanently stunted, but he will likely still be able to live a long and happy life if you provide enough food from now on.

1st thing to do is make sure you are feeding food of the appropriate size. If you have a pic of your snakey next to something for scale (such as a drink can), we can figure out what kind of food he should be having. I would still up the food gradually - a fuzzy for a few weeks, a crawler for a few weeks, etc... If indeed he can handle bigger than a fuzzy!

If it's some comfort, a friend of mine bought an adult corn recently, and by adult I mean 5 years or more, that had only ever been fed on one fuzzy a week. Bear in mind this was a female that had actually been bred, somehow. She was very skinny, and wolfed down a large mouse gleefully when finally offered it. My point is, under fed snakes can recover and do just fine.

Good on you for noticing something was wrong and taking steps to fix it :)
 
Oh gosh...some people (not you...) should be beaten with a stick...I am so sorry you got such awful advice!! You are in the right place to get him on the right track though. Loads of helpful threads and super awesome people here who can help you get turned around.

I agree with Giga, if there is a way you can get a photo of him next to something so we can get a general idea of his size?

Good on you for noticing something was wrong and taking steps to fix it
Click to expand...

Also this ^^
 
Well the store technically wasn't incorrect, but they did give you incomplete info. If you bought him as a baby and they told you to feed him a pinkie mouse once a week, that would be good for a baby. What they didn't tell you is that eventually he will need larger sizes than pinkies! I have one snake that was quite underfed for the first year of his life, so he was hatchling sized at one year old. I got him onto a proper size and feeding schedule and he grew just fine, although at four years old now, he's still a bit smaller than my other adult snakes.

You may want to start weighing him and his food with a gram scale, so that you can track his growth and make sure to move him up to the correct size food at the right time.
 
MsCarter said:
. . . And it is the last time I will ever take advice from a pet store or obtain a pet without doing my own research first. . . ..
Click to expand...

Hi MsCarter. Welcome.

If you sincerely mean what you said about doing research prior to obtaining a pet then at least, not all is for naught.

I am also biting my tongue and refraining from being a flamethrower here, because, Lord knows, I've done some pretty DUMBASS things with my own corns, sometimes resulting in the loss of a life, and more than once! Anyone who's lost a snake to an escape understands how that feels!! So I would by a hypocrite to throw any stones. That being said, if you really mean what you say, is it possible to post some scaled pix of your little one (meaning with something included in the picture that would make it easy to determine the actual size of your snake, such as a tape measure or even a dollar bill).

Maybe it isn't too late to prevent your snake from slowly withering away.
 
MsCarter said:
Hello all,
I'm a little concerned about my corn snake as he is about 3-4 years old and not much bigger than he was as a baby when I purchased him.
I got him at a local pet store and honestly I knew very little about snakes. I was told by the people who sold him to me that as long as I had a 10 gallon tank and made sure to give him a thawed out frozen pinky mouse weekly he would be fine, and that was pretty much all there was to caring for him other than keeping fresh water available and cleaning his cage every so often. So that is what I have been doing for 3years. Recently I walked through the reptile section at another pet store and noticed their corn snakes are much much bigger than mine. I was shocked to discover they were only a fraction of the age as mine! I feel horrible! And it is the last time I will ever take advice from a pet store or obtain a pet without doing my own research first. I want him to be happy! I'm getting him a larger tank asap and a undertank heating pad for one side of his tank. Is there other things I should be doing? He is eating fuzzies now (once a week), I know they are nocturnal but I still cut a light on for him a few hours every day, he has a lot he uses to help him shed, a nice little hide out cave, and I use a wood shaving substrate that says it is for snakes. Please tell me if I'm doing something wrong.
Sorry for the long comment I just really feel like a horrible snake owner at this point and want to do everything I can to make it right for him.
Click to expand...

Welcome !!
We are always glad to offer advice especially to someone that wants to correct their errors for the benefit of the snake!

Im reading into this and making an assumption based on what I underlined. Does it mean you have no heat source on the current tank other than a day bulb on for a few hours a day?
If so....
Cornsnakes are pretty good at acclimating to the conditions they're provided and if those conditions don't provide a hot spot or enough heat in general to "rev up" their metabolism then they are not going to require much in the way of nutrients to sustain life. Reptiles have an excellent "safe mode".
We have a Rescue snake that I mention in threads like this. Phillip was kept in a ten gallon with a very small under tank heater. He was only fed pinkies also. When we got him he was 2 years old and 30 grams. Other than stuck shed on the tip of his tail he was healthy. Since adding the appropriate heat and moving him up in prey size he is now a voracious eater and has gained 110 grams.
As Phillip is your snake will probably stay a small adult but with the proper changes that you have already started he will grow.
:)
 
daddio207 said:
Haha yeah I refer to them as "I'm an idiot" moments. :awcrap:
Click to expand...

I call them brain farts. It's great when our snakes survive in spite of them. The good news is where there is life there is hope and it's never too late to learn.

In my experience when I learn from a mistake it's a lesson not soon forgotten or repeated.

Welcome MsCarter. We are here at you and your snake's service! :wavey:
 
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First, thank you all for your replies. For some reason I was not receiving notifications when I received a reply. I just decided to come check it out (thank God I did).
For some reason it will not allow me to attach a photo? I also do not have any scales but will purchase one asap to weigh him. And honestly I probably deserve to be beaten with a stick, thank you all for your kind words but I take full responsibility, it's no excuse.
He looks like he struggles to down fuzzies but he does manage to get the task done. He will not stay still long enough to allow me to measure him but I would say he's about 2 and a half feet long (give or take a few inches). He is very skinny. Like a spaghetti noodle :( but he does act healthy as far as I know. He's active and eats well. I did feed him twice this week is this something you guys would recommend? Also, no I do not have any heat source. I was going to purchase a reptile heating pad but really don't know if I should? I know I'm really clueless and keep reading mixed opinions. His tank is always between 70-85 degrees due to his day lamp and I do not want to over heat him. Is this warm enough?
As soon as I can figure out how to upload pics I will do so. Even if he is always small that is fine, I just want him healthy and happy.
Thank you all for your help
 
The best way to attach photos on this site is to upload them somewhere else, like imgur or photobucket. Then you can copy and paste them into the little icon that looks like a mountain and moon.

I would switch to a heat pad, personally, and get rid of the light altogether. The light can really dry out the environment. And snakes use belly heat to digest, so a heat pad provides that better than overhead light.

If you want to get a more accurate length on him, you can use this website: http://serpwidgets.com/main/measure. Basically you just take a picture of him with something you know the length of, like a ruler. Length isn't usually a very important piece of information for health, but it is interesting to know. You can gauge his thinness by looking at his shape. Is he triangularly shaped? You can google some pictures of thin corn snakes to get an idea of what they look like when they're underweight.

I would feed him once every 5 days, not twice a week. You really don't want to risk a regurge from feeding him before he's done digesting his previous meal.
 
428a71aa367eb4235c51146fcf617025.jpg

Ok, I tried to attach a photo that will give an idea of his size compared to a can. Hopefully it worked!

I will definitely switch to a heating pad than and begin feeding him every 5 days. Would you recommend no light what so ever? Not even a lamp near his tank? I also have been misting inside of his tank once a day, do you suggest i continue to do this or stop? We have low humidity here and I always worry he may need the mist in order to shed properly. Also, as you can see by the picture I do let him play in the tub. When I put water in its always just a very small amount and I never leave him alone in the water and I make it room temperature so he doesn't get cold. Is this okay? Sorry for the boat load of questions I'm just trying hard to learn how to make him happy.


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Here is a pic where you can see his head since it was cut off in the last pic
5d5e1d7d7417c7e4cb6f4904f9299a04.jpg



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Well he doesn't look like he's at death's door, so don't give up hope - with proper feeding he'll be right as rain!

Definitely do get a heat mat, attach a thermostat to it and adjust it so the temperature is about 28C (82.4F apparently). Put the mat under one end of the tank, so that it covers about 1/3 to 1/2 the bottom of the tank. Put the thermostat probe in the tank (it'll need to have a hole in the side for this) on top of the mat where your snakey usually sits.

Feeding 2x a week (I assume every 3-4 days) is a bit much; I would say every 5-7 days (weekly would be fine). Stick with the fuzzies for now - he can definitely manage them, and see how he is in a month or two to see if he can start taking hoppers. The general rule is that food should be the same size to 1.5x wider than the widest part of the snake.

Light is not necessary for them, though they seem to enjoy it (hard to tell really). I have lights in all my vivs partly because it looks nice and partly because it gives them a more reliable day-night cycle (the light is on a timer). In a smaller tank though, a light may be kicking off too much heat and be a bit intense. A light near the tank, but not shining directly in it would be fine though. And obviously don't have him in a window in direct sunlight.

It's fine to give him a bath in lukewarm water, though not usually necessary (it's usually done to help snakes that are struggling with a shed or are constipated, but it's not harmful to healthy snakes). Just make sure the water is not too warm (it should feel 'pleasantly cool' to the touch and that it's not so deep that he's forced to swim, rather than just resting on the bottom.

Daily misting is probably excessive - too high a humidity can lead to breathing difficulties and wet substrate etc. can harbour bacteria. On the other hand, I assume you're not overdoing it too much or you'd have encountered these problems already! That having been said, misting corns is not usually necessary; it's usually only done with a snake in shed, or never (I'm in the latter camp). Can you get a humidity reader? That will tell you if you need to be misting or not.
 
He's definitely quite thin, but I think you'll have no problem getting him back on track.

I agree with most of the things Giga said, although I would recommend that your heat mat be set to 87.

As far as lights, he really doesn't need them at all, but if you like the look of it, you could try some led bulbs so it won't be creating extra heat.
 
Thank you both so much. I will be purchasing a heating mat asap. I will also stop the misting at least until I get a humidity reader. When I first got him a few years ago he did loose the very tip of his tail (a very very small amount) due to shed getting stuck. Ever since I have just been paranoid and worried it will happen again. What is the correct range of humidity for him?
I will stick with the fuzzies for now than, he is about to get one as we speak:) he's such a smart little guy. he knows when his tank opens he's either getting out or he's getting food lol.

I can't thank you guys enough :) I will take in all of your advice and make the needed changes immediately. Cypress is my buddy he has hung in there and put up with me for a few years now and I really love the little stinker. Can't imagine losing him, especially due to improper care :(


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Just wanted to update everyone and say that Cypress is doing great! We took everyone's advice (got a heating pad, probe thermometer, stopped the misting, did away with the light, and he gets a fuzzy every 5 days). He's much more active than he once was and is already going through his SECOND shed since I first began making these changes a few weeks ago. Thank you all for your help and advice :) I know my little guy is grateful to you all as well


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