Hey all,
I am a relatively new snake owner. We got our first corn snake about 2 years ago as a tiny baby who had never eaten. We named it Slim Jim (unsexed) because of its beautiful red/brown color. Slim had done amazing until we moved it to a larger terrarium. The terrarium we moved it to is about 75 gallon fish tank that we repurposed and created a lid for.
Last year in late February/early March Slim figured out how to use it's muscles to open the lid and escaped. Slim went missing for the entire summer!! In September of last year (2020) we found Slim in the house during one of the colder days of the month. Slim seemed healthy, good body condition but was definitely not as brightly colored as before.
We fed Slim frozen thawed mice like we did before they escaped. They ate 2 small sized fuzzy mice and refused more. Understanding that it was an adjustment for Slim to go from free range back to a terrarium, we didn't push it.
However, it is now March 2021 and Slim has not gotten another meal down. We tried feeding Slim several times during the fall, every time we they would accept food and try to eat, it would get thrown back up before going very far... like digestion had barely begun when the food would be spit back up. This happened 4 times before we stopped trying to feed it. We tried frozen thawed and even attempted live mice to no avail.
For the past several months Slim has been more or less silent, very little movement. In the past month it has tried to shed, unsuccessfully. I just recently saw the post on shedding and am trying that fix tonight on Slim. However, I am starting to get more concerned about Slim's lack of interest in food all together.
I have been doing research and I am concerned there may be an underlying issue causing Slim to avoid food such as Gastric Intussusceptions. I found this article online and it seemed to fit Slim's symptoms.
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/crivem/2017/4270904/
Has anyone here experienced this? Can anyone give me advice?