New corn snake set up / Not feeding

Hi all,

I'm a new corn snake owner whose snake hasn't fed since I got it 5 weeks ago. This is my first reptile. She is a 3 year old female corn snake. I'm also a bit exhausted from all the conflicting advice I've been given, so I thought what better way to deal with this than post my questions in a different forum to receive yet more advice!

I purchased the snake and all the setup from a well respected local reptile store. Here is the care sheet they provided, straight from their website: http://www.reptilesplus.co.uk/docs/snakecs.pdf

I initially followed the setup exactly as printed on page 3, except with a smaller water bowl (recommended by the shop), and with the bulb stat probe at the back middle of the viv, resting on the aspen - as supposed to in the very middle (again recommended by the shop). So, following instructions exactly, I had a 50w green incandescent bulb statted at 82 degrees, with the stat probe in the back centre, and an unstatted heat mat covering the right hand third of the viv. Here is what it looked like after initital setup:



A cheap dial thermometer the pet shop gave me, resting in the middle of the cork bark in the above picture read at 82 degrees, which makes sense as the stat probe for the bulb was just behind it - so feeling secure in the knowledge that'd I'd done exactly what the shop told me to do, in went the snake, where it immediately went and buried itself in the aspen on the left and hid. Not unusual behaviour for a new snake so not too worried - I left it alone, only changing the water - didn't see the snake come out at all during this time - then after 10 days, dropped a large defrosted mouse in the cold side (probably on the snake as I had no idea where it was). I was informed the snake was an established feeder and was drop fed (like all the snakes) at the pet store. The snake didn't come out that night before I went to bed, and the mouse was still there in the morning so as instructed, I removed it.

Later that day when I came back from work the snake was out and about (for the first time), climbing around, flicking tongue, very active (looking for the mouse?), very encouraging to see but as we'd been told to wait a week after a refused feed, we left it and eventually she went and hid again. After a week we tried again but still the mouse was still there the morning after.

I did some research / got some advice at this point and people seemed surprised I had an unstatted mat (which I now know is not good) AND was using a statted bulb as well - I was told this seemed like overkill (and that I should get a mat stat asap). I was also told I should put down more hides, which is fair enough. I had thought the mat was getting far too hot, by digging a little hole in the aspen and touching my finger to the mat it was uncomfortably hot to the touch! I purchased a digital thermometer with probe and placed it on the aspen just below the bulb / above the mat, it easily reached 140 degrees. This is one thing that I found really confusing, everything I've read says that a spot that hot in the viv is a terrible idea, but with the relatively small distance between the bulb and the floor of the viv, if the bulb has to work hard enough to get the centre of the viv up to 82 degrees, surely it's always going to result in a really hot spot just below?

Anyway I was worried about how hot the mat was to the touch, so at this point I purchased a stat for the mat and set it to around 30 degrees, with the mat stat probe touching the surface of the mat, under the aspen itself - I was also told by many people that the bulb wasn't required at all, so I turned it off. So at this point I have no bulb and a mat that feels only warm to the touch rather than almost painfully hot for my fingers - seems like a pretty huge deviation compared to what I was told to do by the pet shop! I even spoke to the shop about how hot the mat felt and was just told that it was ok because 'they bask on very hot rocks in the wild'.

Throughout all this we kept attempting weekly feeds with large mice, I've tried warming / braining / warming & braining / warming & braining & offering with tongs. I've got interest with movement towards the prey item, whether it's sat on the ground / a plate or I'm holding it, but no actual attempt to strike or eat.

So since the shop provided setup the following changes have been made:
- bulb switched off
- mat statted at 86
- placed more hides
- thinned out aspen over the mat

Resulting in this:


After making these changes she's been using her hides more rather than burrowing, I spotted her in the hide on the right over the mat just once, and quite often in the middle hide.

This was the setup the snake was left with over the christmas period while we went away for two weeks. We had people come in to change the water and I set the central heating to come on a few times a day to warm the room. I left the thermometer probe inside the hide on the warm side, resting on the surface of the aspen. When we came back at the start of January we were greeted with what appeared to be a complete shed, albeit in 3 parts (tail tip and eye caps on the shed seem present and correct). We were hoping this was the reason she hadn't been eating (it's hard to tell when your snake was about to shed when it's constantly hiding and you've been told to avoid handling it until it's successfully fed a few times), but a mouse offered last Friday was not taken either.

I'm concerned I came on a bit strong when offering the food, I lifted up the hide she was under to get her attention (but I wasn't poking her with the mouse or anything!) and after a few seconds she approached the mouse with interest and a flicking tongue but then turned away. I'm also concerned it got a bit cold over the xmas period (I'm in the UK), I recorded a low of 61 degrees in the warm hide. I doubt it was that low for very long as the central heating would have come on after a bit - I think it's because I'd taped the mat stat probe down to the mat (covering the whole probe) which was confusing it into not working hard enough. I got rid of the tape (tape is a bad idea anyway, I now know!) and am just weighing the probe cable down and it seems to maintain mat surface temp better.

Since Sunday the temps have been:

- Under the hide on the right hand warm side, under the aspen, actually touching the mat surface - Low: 29.6, High: 30.6
- Under the hide on the right hand warm side, on the surface of the aspen (about 1.5cm depth of aspen here) - Low: 25.0, High: 26.7
- Next to the hide on the left hand cold side, on the surface of the aspen - Low: 18.1, High: 19.1

It can be assumed the low temps are generally overnight temps, and during the day when everyone is at work (but I set the heating to come on for an hour in the middle of the day just for a bit of extra warmth), and the high temps are in the evening when people are in and the heating is on.

I realize I have a bulb I could use for extra heating, but I don't really understand how I can get any appreciable heat from the bulb that would reach the cold side, without creating a dangerously hot spot right below the bulb. I've tried statting the bulb so that the area directly below it is 86 degrees, but this results in a very dim bulb which I can't imagine throws out a lot of heat to the rest of the viv.

I'm a bit concerned she's been in the left hide way on the cold side since the attempted feeding on Friday (worried I freaked her out a bit by lifting the middle hide to feed - I'm hoping the urge to hide isn't overpowering the urge to self regulate). I'm sure I used to see more evidence of overnight activity, whether it be disturbed aspen or her being in a different position in the morning, but she's not moved for a few days as far as I can tell. This is concerning me that she's too cold - of course I can't guarantee she isn't just moving down well established channels in the aspen when I'm not looking, before putting herself right back where she was before, but I still find it a worry. She's never really out and about in the evening as I hear they often can be. Because she's a 'new' snake to me, I don't really know what 'normal' behavior for her entails. The few times she has come out, she seems pretty fearless to me, she was clearly tame in the pet shop as well.

I was going to try a smaller prey item later this week, I have a medium and a small mouse to try (I read somewhere sometimes something smaller gets them feeding again). Besides that, I guess I'm just looking for any advice with regards to getting her eating, or my setup, or anything really. I've been reassured by many that an adult corn can last for months and months without food, but as you can probably tell from my huge post, this is weighing on my mind a bit. I just want to be a good pet owner with a happy snake!

As a reward for reading all of this, at least have this picture I took a couple of days ago. I had to very quickly lift the cold hide to take this (sorry snakey):

Okay, I think I read all that and I think your set-up now is good. I would leave her alone until this Friday and don't worry about where she's hiding, just let her do it. The first thing I'd try is feeding a nicely warmed, smaller (maybe hopper?) mouse inside a shoebox-sized plastic tub with a lid, inside her viv if you prefer. Keep it dark and leave her alone overnight.

If she is still refusing food, it could be stress from the past few weeks or it could even be seasonal although my female adult doesn't stop eating like my male does. It will take her many months to starve, don't worry. She doesn't look thin now.

(the plastic tub needs to have holes for breathing!)

Thanks for your help, despite not feeding I needed to handle the snake to clean out the vivarium (tried to keep it to a minimum), she didn't really want to be picked up initially but once I had hold of her she seemed ok, didn't bite or anything or particularly try to get away.

As she's not eating I thought this would be a good chance to weigh her to monitor her weight, this was taken last weekend:



She's currently 705g, I was going to weigh her every couple of weeks to make sure she isn't dropping too rapidly (what would too rapidly be?)

I also added some fake foliage after cleaning:


After putting her back in the newly decorated viv, her behaviour for the last few days has been different, she was spending all her time lying under the hide on the warm side, directly on the heat mat (which definitely has a surface temp of 82.5-86). Before she was sticking to the hide on the cold side. Maybe the extra foliage makes her feel safer on the warm side.

I was very optimistic that warming up over the last few days would stimulate her appetite so I tried drop feeding a warm brained mouse on top of the warm hide (as I often see her head pop out there), she did pop her head out during the evening so was practically face to face with the mouse, but it was still there this morning.

I could try putting her in a box with a mouse overnight (does the box pictured above seem ok? It's a bit bigger than a shoebox, but not by much), any other suggestions welcome.

Thanks

I'd wait 5-7 days, and offer a HOT dry small mouse, in a feeding container. Cover it up with a towel, don't peek for 2-3 hours.

The viv looks great.

I wonder if her age is truly 3. 705 grams is IMMENSE for that age. I have a big (in a strong, healthy way) male who is around 650ish, and he is 8.

Going forward, a good feeding plan for her would be a weanling or small adult mouse- 18-21 grams- every two weeks. You can't go back in time and drop half her weight, healthily, but you can drop it gradually, or at least not add to it.

My adult females are in the 400-500 gram range. That's a nice healthy weight. I aim for a VERY slow weight gain, just grams per feeding.

I expect much of your feeding problems were caused by her blue state. Now she just needs to settle in, relax, and start feeding. Obviously, she knows how to eat, and has a substantial reserve. With a non-feeding snake, you really don't have to start worrying until they have lost 20-25% or their original weight. You've got plenty of time to figure out what she wants.

That weight isn't the combined weight of snake and container, is it? You subtracted the container's weight or used the TARE(sp) function to zero out the container weight?
She's a very nice looking snake, love those warm colors. (now has viv envy).

Hi,

Me again. I've since tried a baby rat via tongs (seemed very interested but didn't go for it in the end), and a hot mouse in a feeding container with a lid. I used the same tupperware you can see in the picture I weighed her in. I drilled some holes in the lid then put the whole thing in the viv, and covered the viv with a towel for darkness.

Didn't seem to work but the mouse looked a bit bloodied when I checked after a couple of hours - maybe she'd had a go at it?

I've weighed her again and she's definitely a heavy snake. She dropped from 705g to 695g in 16 days. This means she's dropping less than 4.5g per week from not eating. If I overestimate and make the assumption that she dropped 5g every week since we got her 8 weeks ago, she would have only lost 5.6% of her 'starting' body weight since then. So I'm thinking I don't need to worry!

I'm taking the weight of the container into account, with the container + snake it's 995g.

Any other ideas appreciated but I'm thinking based on the slow weight loss and the fact that nothing seems to be working, it's probably just a winter fast?

Thanks

I'm still not having a lot of luck, tried dropping a large hot brained mouse near the hide on the warm side she was under last night (but not on the actual heat mat!) right before I went to bed (so snake was left in a dark room with no noise) at all.

Mouse still there in the morning but the snake had shifted over to the cold side so she clearly came out and was offended enough by my offering to move away from it.

If the pet shop was accurate about feeding their snakes on a thursday, and she took the last feed the shop gave her before we took her home, it'll be 10 weeks tomorrow since she ate.

I've ordered her some new hides, I don't know if it's even a problem but she's a bit big for her cork bark hides as often some of her is sticking out, I don't know if this would contribute to any stress but hey, new snake toys! She does her use cork bark hides and I can often see her poking her head out in the evening, she's rather nervous though and will duck away again if I approach the viv too rapidly.

I've been looking into what a 'worrying' amount of weight loss would be for a fasting snake, I've read people saying their snake only dropped 2g in a month when not eating, I've had a herpetologist vet tell me 20-25g in 2 weeks would be a concern (this same vet also told me to get a UV heat lamp for my corn though), and I think someone here may have said not to worry until they'd dropped 25% of their weight - if someone could provide some extra reassurance by confirming 4.5g a week weight loss for a 700g snake was fine, that would be great!

Thanks

It could also be the season... she is fat enough and if she wants to mate they can go on a hunger strike from what I understood.

It could also be that you have tried too hard, did you ever just leave her alone for lets say 2 weeks? NO offer of food, no bothering her, maybe even cover part of the glass tank and just leave her alone...

That is the two thoughts coming to my mind.. and snakes drop slowly if they are brumating, she might be dropping a little faster because she is in season..

I might be wrong so listen more to the experts but that is what comes into my head..

Ravenessa said:

It could also be the season... she is fat enough and if she wants to mate they can go on a hunger strike from what I understood.

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I agree, she may not be eating due to this being mating season, but something else bothered me: is your mat heater IN the tank or underneath the glass?

UTHs (mat heater called an Under Tank Heater) should be under the bottom of the tank taking up 1/3 of the viv. In the viv, directly over the middle of the UTH should be the probe for the thermostat, and another probe for a digital thermometer. The probes NEVER touch the actual mat, there is the glass bottom between them. The thermometer just ensures your stat readings are correct.

Honestly, that monster could go months without a meal and be fine. If she's three, she's been overfed like I have never seen. I wouldn't stress about this fast until about mid-April. If she wasn't brumated, she might have been cooled by the room temp dropping and her body just signaled for her to shut down. I doubt hides are a factor (though they can't hurt), it's probably either the new environment, or she got chilled recently. If she were mine, I wouldn't offer food until you are seeing her out exploring (hunting). When they are hungry, they'll hunt if temps are right.

Ravenessa said:

... did you ever just leave her alone for lets say 2 weeks? NO offer of food, no bothering her, maybe even cover part of the glass tank and just leave her alone...

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I am wondering the same thing. Have you tried just leaving the snake in peace for a week or two? That might be all you need. You can let her rest and get comfortable, and you try not to worry so much (believe me, we all know how that is lol). When you see her finally poking her little head out, smelling her tank, moving around, then try feeding as that is a sign that she wants some food. I also recommend following the advice of everyone else in this thread with regards to heating and so forth.

Whenever I'm having problems feeding I wait until I see our snakes actively moving around, smelling things, climbing, etc. Basically when they're hungry they'll hunt for food.

-- Kai

Hi all,

To respond to the question on the last page, it's a wooden viv so the heat mat is inside (it's all statted). I'm quite confident my temps are fine, I have taken readings and the snake uses the hides on both sides (seems to swap sides every couple of days, I'm not sure how often they are supposed to move when thermo-regulating?)

I tried leaving around 13 days between feeds (and I've not been bothering her apart from to change the water) but that didn't seem to help, she does come out and about in the evenings and does excited laps sometimes, climbs, etc - particularly the day after a failed feed (due to mouse smell maybe?) which looks like hunting behavior to me - but if I spot this, and then wanted to defrost a mouse at room temp that would take hours and she's usually hidden herself away by then.

I've read many people defrost their mice quickly in warm water with no issues so I could give that a go next time she seems active and hunting, I've read from some people this can encourage bacteria but I can't see another way of getting a mouse 'ready' on short notice.

As has been pointed out she is a big corn, regardless of her age. Entirely possible the pet shop didn't know her true age, she was a rescue snake. I would assume they were basing what they told us ("about 3-4 years old") on something - how do you tell the age of an adult corn anyway? Cut it open and count the rings?

Anyway she's got plenty of weight to lose and I'm trying to not worry based on this and the fact that it could easily be a winter or breeding fast - I'm sure she was eating fine at the pet shop, but I think they'd only had her a few months if that, so they wouldn't necessarily have had any experience of how she behaves at time time of year with regards to feeding.

Thanks for all the help

buffeh said:

I've read many people defrost their mice quickly in warm water with no issues so I could give that a go next time she seems active and hunting, I've read from some people this can encourage bacteria but I can't see another way of getting a mouse 'ready' on short notice.

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This is perfectly acceptable and usually desirable. This may actually be the reason she is refusing to feed. My corn will turn his nose up at a cold mouse. You want to try to "fool" them into thinking their food is still alive, or recently deceases by making it warm throughout. Not hot, but warm. If you cook the mouse it loses a great deal of its nutritional value, so deforst it slowly in warm water. I usually do two defrostings back-to-back. I will put the mouse (still in the bag if possible) in a small tub of warm water, with a lid on, for about 15-20 minutes and then dump the tub of water as it will be too cold by this time, then refill the tub with the same temp of water but flip the bagged mouse to the other side. The hardest bits to defrost are skull and bones so be sure you've allowed enough time for them to be at least room temp and not frozen. You want the belly of your mouse to feel warm to your touch. Try this, if the problem has been cold mice then you will see an immediate change in feeding behavior.

Sometimes they're just stubborn though.

I also forgot to mention that you may want to leave your defrosted mouse out on a paper towel near her viv for a while to allow the scent to creep in. Try fanning the mouse with a piece of paper or your hand, push the scent into her viv, get her curious.

We cannot feed our snake thawed mice unless are dropped directly into the water. Some snakes don't like the "smell" of the mouse when it's been thawed in the plastic bags. There are so many ways to feed these snakes, your have to figure out what is right for your snake! We actually had to switch to live with ours before we figured out the frozen, but he was just a baby and went 4 or 5 weeks without feeding! Definitely warm your mouse in water. We actually use a cheap kids thermometer to check the water temp when thawing. If your using bigger mice, you might wait until the water temp is right around 90-95 degrees on the second thaw. That's closer to the temp of a mouse and might tempt her more. I'm just a newbie, but that's what we found worked for our snake.

Thanks all,

I've tried warming mice in a plastic bag in water (after thawing at room temp), tried loads of tricks (different prey, braining etc). Not tried scenting with tuna / chicken / chick blood yet though. She still looks fine and healthy though.

She has been behaving a bit odd this week though. I say odd, but we've only had her 3 months and not owned a snake before, so it's hard to say if this is odd behaviour! I got her some new exo-terra hides about 3 weeks ago, snake cave with a bottom on the cool side, and a bottomless reptile cave for the warm side direct on the heat mat. She used them as soon as I replaced the cork bark hides (which were a bit small), and I'd see she was always in one or the other unless actively moving around the vivarium.

But since last sunday she's stopped using the snake cave instead preferring to curl up behind it at the back of the viv - there is a bit of fake foliage and a branch but she's hardly concealed! And this morning instead of being inside her warm hide she was curled up between it and the side wall instead, in full view of the room! In addition to this for the last few days I've seen her sat out and about in the middle of the viv, not moving - before this week if she was ever in full view she was on the move at the time.

Not changed anything except had the room main light on more in the evenings in case that made her think it was later in the year (and hence time to eat). Temps are all the same as they were.

Just a case of snakes being weird? Or something else?