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Health Issues/Feeding Problems Anything related to general or specific health problems. Issues having to do with feeding problems or tips.

Pretty bummed...
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Old 08-05-2018, 03:17 PM   #1
Aehill
Pretty bummed...

My wife and I bought a female amel from PetSmart for our 6 year-old son a few weeks ago. I was actually out of town when she picked it up, but I'd shown her some pics of what I wanted and they had one. So they gave her a feeding chart at the time of purchase that showed that they had had the snake for 5 weeks without a successful feeding. I was concerned about this, but figured I'd see if we could get her to eat. We tried several of the tricks to get her to eat a pinkie, but none worked. When I showed her a live pinkie, she immediately hit, constricted, and consumed it, but then regurged a couple days later. Waited until her next feeding (day before yesterday) and tried again. And again, she immediately hit, constricted, and consumed the pinkie, but again... regurged this morning.

My assumption at this point is that she has a health problem that she had well before she got to our home. We were already past PetSmart's 14 day return policy, but I decided to see if they'd take her back anyway, as well as see if they had any interesting, proven eaters there at the store. They had a nice looking butter motley there (who had been successfully fed) and were willing to trade out for the amel we'd previously purchased.

While I'm happy with the motley and that they were willing to work with us, I'm still pretty bummed about the amel. She was a very pretty girl and I was looking forward to watching her grow. More than the disappointment, though, I'm really frustrated that they'd even put a snake out on the floor for sale that they haven't been able to feed. In my opinion, they should make sure these animals are healthy and feeding regularly before putting them on the floor with a price-tag.
 
Old 08-05-2018, 03:59 PM   #2
Frank Pinello
It sounds like they told you that the snake wasn't feeding but you agreed to buy it anyway with the challenge to get it to eat.
Glad to here they were willing to replace it. Good luck with your butter motley.
 
Old 08-05-2018, 04:10 PM   #3
Aehill
Not accusing PetSmart of doing anything wrong outside of selling a snake that they hadn't verified was actually healthy. And as stated in the OP, I wasn't there at the time of purchase. I only saw the feeding chart when I got back in town, at which point we already had the snake. So I figured I'd give getting her to feed a shot.
 
Old 08-05-2018, 04:31 PM   #4
Rich Z
I think you were actually very lucky they took that non-feeder back. Maybe things have changed, but I recall that nearly NO pet stores I knew of would ever take back any snake sold as a pet for any reason.

Quite frankly, unless you are very experienced with problematic feeder corn snakes, that no one purchase one that is not feeding. You are just setting yourself of for a potential headache and heartbreak.
 
Old 08-05-2018, 05:31 PM   #5
Aehill
I don't know of any pet stores around here that don't have some sort of pet health guarantee. Main reason I'm bummed is that we really liked the amel. All in all, though, things turned out well, and I'm sure Lincoln and I will thoroughly enjoy the butter motley.

As far as the non-feeder thing goes, she wasn't a non-feeder. She just wouldn't eat f/t, which is all PetSmart will attempt to feed their snakes. She'd eat live pinkies with no problem, but for whatever reason, couldn't keep them down. And I don't believe the pinkies were too big. From what I've read on here, one regurge, not always something to worry about. Two in a row, something's probably wrong. As much as I didn't really want to, I figured it was now or never on attempting to trade her out for something else or return for a refund.
 
Old 08-05-2018, 06:04 PM   #6
Shiari
Is your new snake in the same cage and using the same decor as the previous snake? If so, please get all new stuff, especially water bowl, right away. A possible cause of repeated regurges in a hungry snake is a parasite called cryptosporidium serpentis. It can lay dormant for years but once a snake is clinical it is invariably fatal. It's also almost impossible to kill in the environment; bleach won't even touch it. I'm not saying that 100% that is what the other snake had, but especially coming from a pet store it is a real concern.
 
Old 08-05-2018, 07:03 PM   #7
Rich Z
The trick I used to use with pretty good success with baby snakes going into regurge syndrome was to just feed them decapitated pinky heads for a month. That normally would pull them out of the downward spiraling cycle they were in. It seems that once their digestive system went out of whack, they just could no longer hold down normal sized meals. So the pinky heads kept them going until they could stabilize.

Or at least that is how it seemed to work for me.
 
Old 08-06-2018, 10:15 AM   #8
Dragonling
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich Z View Post
I think you were actually very lucky they took that non-feeder back. Maybe things have changed, but I recall that nearly NO pet stores I knew of would ever take back any snake sold as a pet for any reason.

Quite frankly, unless you are very experienced with problematic feeder corn snakes, that no one purchase one that is not feeding. You are just setting yourself of for a potential headache and heartbreak.
PetSmart gives a 14 day guarantee to refund or replace if you're not happy. There are some conditionals, but most stores will honor it anyway, especially if you take it to corporate now that they've shifted focus pretty strongly towards customer satisfaction.

Unfortunately big box stores in general offer only bare basic training, and if the minimum wage college kids that keep getting hired don't feel like doing extra homework or reading the surprisingly decent info found in the Big Book of Pet Care™ (as I like to call it), they're on average less likely to know much about snakes than any other pet in the store. This is especially true if their only knowledge of the animals is the one-page care guides and monthly videos, which are basically long ads that teach you how to sell products more than anything.
 
Old 08-06-2018, 05:09 PM   #9
Twolunger
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich Z View Post
The trick I used to use with pretty good success with baby snakes going into regurge syndrome was to just feed them decapitated pinky heads for a month. That normally would pull them out of the downward spiraling cycle they were in. It seems that once their digestive system went out of whack, they just could no longer hold down normal sized meals. So the pinky heads kept them going until they could stabilize.

Or at least that is how it seemed to work for me.
I have used that pinkie head method also, usually dusting them with probiotics and force feeding them. I have also used partial mouse tails to get their systems working. But when we raised too many to use time consuming methods we had "pinkie pumps." Those pumps force a pinkie to crush though narrow holes and they are forced out the end of a feeding tube into the hatchling's stomach. I actually ground up frozen pinkies in a food blender and put them in the glass tube of the pump and heated the pump until I was ready to feed. The hatchlings seldom regurged, as there was no real solid mass in their stomach.
 
Old 08-06-2018, 06:38 PM   #10
Rich Z
Yikes! Pinky Pump. I remember that device.

Back when there were only like a handful of snow corns in the world I had a few of them being stubborn about feeding. So I decided to give my spanking brand new Pinky Pump a whirl with them. It was easy enough to use, as I pre-blended the pinky mice instead of using the "blades" in the pump for that. When I tested the device, I found that the Pinky Pump tended to pop air pockets out of the tube, which I was afraid would be damaging to a baby snake.

Anyway, I used the Pinky Pump on those snow corns, and it seemed to go without a hitch. Until a couple of days later when they all died on me. I had no idea what had happened, but for certain was pretty bummed out. I inspected the Pinky Pump looking for an answer, and I sure enough found it. There was a sharp burr on the end of the metal tube of the pump. So my guess is that when I forced the pump tube down the throats of those snakes, that burr was slicing their throats lengthwise at the same time.

I can't recall exactly, but I believe I just thew that Pinky Pump in the trash can. Or maybe it is still laying in a box somewhere around here. I certainly never used it again, even after I had polished out that burr and figured it was likely safe to use. Maybe it wasn't the burr, but something else? Wasn't willing to take that chance.
 

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