• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

So how fast do your corns digest their food?

13mur 6

13mur 6

Junior Researcher, MSKCC
Hey everyone,

Remember that corn with the swollen belly and nasty poop? Well she's on her way back to recovery (just need her to gain some weight). She ate her first large sized meal last Sunday (a small rat pink), and she's managed to keep it down and looks like the lump is just about gone today. So it's taking her more than 4 days to digest a larger than normal meal.

How long does it take your snakes to digest their meals? (or the lump of the food item to go away?)

-13mur 6
 
My snake take one day to digest two pinkies.But mine is just a baby. But I wouldn't worry if I was you. I'm not a perfect sciencetist but... I hope this helps.
 
I don't know if this is just my snakes or not, but my females poops 1 to 2 days after she eats, and one of my males poops 4-5 days after he eats. the female is < 1 year old and the male is almost 2. I wonder if that has something to do with it
Anyway, I hope this helped
 
Yeah, I guess I'm just a little worried. My snake still has a spine ridge showing and I can still just barely feel her ribs under her skin sometimes, and I'm trying to balance between feeding her enough so she gains weight, but not pushing her till the point she regurges. She doesn't seem to put much of her food onto her bones.

I need to get a new digital scale, my old one broke and the warranty expired, :( . That used to be my single way of getting a measure of how things were coming along.

Maybe I'm bothering her too much, a funny thing happened yesterday. Around the 4th time I checked on her for the day to see how her digestion was going along she sorta looked at me and started gaping her mouth like she does right before she regurges, but I quickly replaced her hide ontop of her and left her alone till this afternoon, and she seems fine with no regurge in sight (I use paper towel bedding so hard to miss). I guess she knows how to make me worry. :)

-13mur 6
 
if your trying to put wieght on your conr dont feed large items ! , feed lots of little items and bulid them up slowly (i knwo some snake that dispite there size refuse to take more than onefood item so your pretty much stuck with one large fodd item)
the reason for feeding lots of little itme is the snake will digest smaller prey items much faster weight for weight, for instance the snow corn i have psoted in the gallery will happily eat fluffs of varying sizes if i give him just one large fluff it takes him about 4/5 days to digets it and want anohter meal if i give hhim to small fluffs he'll be ready to snack again in about 3/4 days and in all probablility ate far more in two small fluffs .......give it try
 
Oh, actually, she should be eating much larger food items for her age and size (she's over a year old now and she's 28" long, she used to be on hoppers last summer).

She actually digested the whole thing in the 4 days and left me a nice big present last night to clean up (fully and thoroughly digested poop).

-13mur 6
 
i think mine have problems or something because it takes them about a week to digest their food and too deficate. and then after two weeks are more their still deficating until all of it is out(like if i feed my corn 3 weanling mice he poops 3 times).
but its never within that same week like y'alls is

i think it has to do with something about them not heating themselves up after they feed, they don't go in the hide boxes over the heating mat they always stay on the cooler side.

its not like its to hot its perfect i can keep my hand over the mat forever

:eek:
 
Iv'e noticed that it takes Akasha around a day to digest two or three pinkies(mice) but it can take up to three days to digest a fuzzie (mouse)!
 
One of my snakes takes 3-5 days to digest his meal and hes a little guy only about a foot long.Is this normal?He is on 1 pinkie is that good?BTW he dosent have a growth problem he is just a baby.

Please help

Thanx
 
It seems to me (and I'm no Vet, just an opinion) that the biggest factor in this is thermal conditions.

My corns old home was kept around 80-83 degrees, and "poo" seemed to happen in about 5 days. When I moved my guys to their new home, I stepped up the heating because of the larger size of the aquarium and the temp leveled at between 85-88 degrees. Now, the "poo" seems to come in around 3 days.

BTW- fateamber, are you a fan of Anne Rice's vampire chronicles also? Five of my corns are named after her vampires (Akasha, Lestat, Armand, Enkil, and Thorne).

My Akasha is Anery:
Akasha.jpg
 
88 IS TOO HOT FOR CORNS!

J Daniels, please listen up. I know you can jump start their metabolism for thereapy, but even 85 is the upper limit for full time temp. Years ago I kept mine too warm for quite some time b/c of regurge problems, etc. with the best of intentions (they do puke when too cold) and met a breeder of Okeetees (from Okeetee) who has become my mentor as far as husbandry is concerned. He actually has sold many of his to the Love's and other breeders (and me). The first thing he did was put a digital therm in my cage and say "86 is too hot for corns." 78 to 82 became my range, excluding a hot spot they could get out of.
The snakes (which I feared were dying) shaped up completely with no change except for that and bottled water.
 
Last edited:
Hmm... not too sure I'm understanding what you're saying. My temps are: 90 degree hotspot under a hide using a UTH, and a 75 deg cool side near the water bowl. I think I heard somewhere that a 90 deg hotspot is very much needed by corns to reach a "fever" state when needed.

Temps too high I think cause a rapid increase in digestive function, and speeds up to the point where the food is digested but not absorbed and simply passed (this is not good). And temps too cool will cause regurges.

I think as long as you have a the proper thermocline, your snakes will find the temp they like regardless of high/low temps (for example the hot side could be 100 deg, and the cool side 60, and as long as the cage is long enough, there should be ample room for your snake to find a comfortable spot).

-13mur 6
 
I needed a comma there, between "range" and "outside", I'll edit and fix. My point was, 86 being ambient cage temp, is too high. The temps I mentioned are suggested air temps, not one side of the cage or other's surface temperature gradient. I confused myself when I went back and read that...sorry. I was trying to say that in a large cage, a hotspot (be it a light pad, etc.) is fine if the overall temps stay in the low 80's, high 70's.
I was dealing with snakes in rubbermaids with flexwatt and a thermostat. At 86 I was keeping my snakes too warm. They see days that warm here, but I was keeping them at that temp at all times except brumation. I don't suggest it. Especially just to get a snake to "poop more."
 
Oh okay, now I get it. Yep, 86 ambient air temp is way too high (heat stroke and dehydration anyone?).

-13mur 6
 
OK now I'm a bit confused. I unfortunately don't own a digital or laser thermometer, but I do have three thermometers in the aquarium. All are down at the substrate level, one on the cool end, one in the middle, and lastly one on the hot end near the basking spot (this one is a combination thermometer/ humidity guage). My cool end reads (these temps are with the heat lamp on) 80-83 degrees, the hot end usually around 90 with around 40-50% humidity.

There are hide spots in all three "sections", but my snakes most always stay in the hide spot on the hot end.

Also, can anyone tell me if my humidty level is good? With the light on, the humidity is usually 40-50%, and levels off at around 80-86% about an hour after the heat sources cut off.

Thanks for the advice everyone!

JD
 
If your water bowl isn't steaming, your humidity is probably fine.

If the snake sheds in one piece and there is no moisture on the cage sides, you're probably within the acceptable range. Florida is humid, but there are corns here in the Carolinas in some pretty dry feilds.
As for thermometers, get a digital indoor/outdoor at your local hardware store. The therm tells two temps, put it in the cool end, and the probe in the warm end. Around $16, and is SO much more accurate than the mercury ones, or worse yet, the tape type that stick to the glass. Those are almost worthless. Too affected by room temperatue.
 
I love the vampire chronicles, and mostly the films but i think the queen of the damned is too short. The vampire Lestat and the queen of the damned should of been seperate films but i love the soundtrack! I was going to call my royaL python Enkil to go with Akasha but i don't think it suits him so now i'm thinkin of calling him Lestat.
Also sorry but i have to ask, J_Daniels is your username anything to do with Daniel Johns from silverchair?
 
A good guide to whether your humidity is ok is to how the snake sheds. You seem to have a middle to high humidity level, and so I would imagine that you aren't experiencing any problems.
As to temperature, IMHO, I would say that 80-83 for the cool end is a little on the warm side. The temperature range that we provide goes from about 70-95, and you would be surprised how much time they spend on the cooler ends sometime. Of course, this is just what we have experienced, and it would be interesting to hear other people's view on this.
Skye
 
my snow corn, Chione, is about 10 months old an bout 24" long.
It eats 3 pinkies every 7-10 days and deficates fter 3-5 days.
It`s kept in a 3ft glass aqurium with correct vivarium lid, heated by lamp and an undertank thermal pad. Temps are measured 1" from the substrate and are 85 hotside and 70 coolside. During the day, chione prefers to hide on the cool side, only going to the hot side when the lamp is off. Chione seems perfectly happy with this arrangement although the humidity is low causing sheds to come off in several peices.
in fact, i fed her on saturday.. well tried but she wasn`t interested so i put the pinkies in her tank (on paper towels for added security - dont want her eating the substrate) - then i went to the pub.. came home to find the pinkies gone and 2 nice peices of shed skin waiting for me :)
Personally i`m finding that its best only meddle with the snake the minimum amount - its a semi-wild creature that knows how to look after itself just as long as the tank is setup up correctly and food and water are provided!


edit - apologies for the bad spelling - the A key on my kebord is about worn out!
 
fateamber said:
Also sorry but i have to ask, J_Daniels is your username anything to do with Daniel Johns from silverchair?
Click to expand...

Actually, it's my name, Jason Daniels. But, hey, thanks for asking!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top