hi new owner needing little advice ..

Hi All,My name is Tray amd I Have been looking through this site recently and decided to take the plunge and join you- it seems full of good advice/help and Im looking for some

So I'll start with ..
We adopted a 2 yr old corn 4 weeks ago,She had been a friend's teenage son who had started to neglect her due to finding a girl himself..She has only been given pinkies to eat ( 2 twice a week) and after searching the web and reseaching ,Its obvious she should be on much more than this by now..

We have increased pinkies over the last 4 weeks to see how she reacts and she seems to eat well and be generally happy,Although on the smaller side-.I have bought fluffies/fuzzy for her feed-due today and was advised by the pet store to give her 2,twice a week..I want her to be able to digest her food and not cause her to regurgitate or over feed /make her Ill..so Im wondering what advice you can give regarding this..I was thinking 1 to start and build up as We have with the pinkies .Last thing we want to do is harm her,but as its our first snake our knowledge is limited to reading and researching..Nothing like experience of keeping snakes like you guys.. Im not trying to make her grow fast as that isnt my concern,I just want to make sure she is healthy and happy and do our best for her ,
so any advice would be very welcome
Thank you :spinner:

Twice a week feeding is NOT good. You need a scale to weigh her then you will have a better idea what she should be eating. The Munson feeding Plan is based on weight not age as snakes of the same age can be MANY different sizes. I have 2 '08s and one is about 156 grams while the other is 195 grams. One is about 30 inches the other about 35. I have 2'09 corns, one is 21 grams and 15 inches, the other is 20 grams and 17 inches. This is off the top of my head mind, I would have to pull records to be sure. My 08s are getting weaned mice about 15 to 20 grams each once a week. My 09s .. . one is on double pinks total weight 6 grams per feed, the other on fuzzies about 7-8 grams per feed.

So as you can see it depends on the snake and their weight. I'd recommend hopping to Walmart and getting their $20 digital kitchen scale. Its what I have.

Welcome tray! Many of us use The Munson Plan or variations of it as every corn is different.

I don't believe feeding two fuzzies is recommended at all so I would just go with one for now and build up to bigger sizes as needed rather than feeding double fuzzies. The general rule is the feed item should be 1x to 1.5x the width of the snake at his widest part.

Others with more experience than I can confirm that.

You can work up to double fuzzies, but by the time she's ready for those you can probably switch to small mice anyway.

I'd go with slow and steady increases as she's been used to small meals so far. I'd try one fuzzy a week for a couple of feeds and if she's OK, increase feeding frequency.

The guide to size given by Aislin is a good one as an indicator of when to move up a food size. The Munson Plan is a good starting point, but as yours has had a slow start you may need to tweak it to fit. As you'll see, feeding frequency should decrease as food size increases.

Hi Tray, and welcome! You have landed in a pretty good place for advice, filled with the help of good folks like those above.

The Munson plan as suggested is a pretty good guide in most cases and I use it for my cornsnakes with good success. But I have a male Coral Snow in the same situation as yours regarding size/age and having been fed pinkies for 2+ yrs, and weighing in at 55 grams. The Munson plan recommends a hopper at this size, and I can tell you from _several_bad experiences with this poor guy in the beginning that anything above small fuzzy caused a regurge. It took very careful work to bring him back to 55 from 42, and he's at a robust 65 today. He took 1 small fuzzy every 3 days for 3 weeks, followed by 2 every 5 days for a month and 3 every 5 for another month, followed by 1 lg fuzzy /week for a couple weeks, and 2 for another couple before I tried moving him up to the smallest hopper I could find. He is now taking almost an appropriate size hopper, with gusto. That said, I thought I had lost him when he was down to 42. I don't ever want to go through that again. Oh yeah, and when he hit 42 I began to cut the mice. I stopped this last feeding as he doesn't appear to be in danger of a(nother) regurge.

I'd suggest trying to move her up slowly, and do as you need. I don't like to feed multiple items if I can avoid it. But I figure his stomach just wasn't stretching out properly to accommodate the larger items. With time, he has grown, and the need to feed multiple is passed. There's a time and a place for most all things.....keep us posted.

Hey there, welcome to the forum. Everyone has given you great advice already. All I would add is, we love pictures here, when you get a minuet add some, we won't mind

thanks Guys

Hi thanks Guys lots of Info to go on with all the replies,I have saved the Munson Plan.

We gave her the fuzzy Saturday which she ate with Gusto,And is seeming fine with it so far, So I will see how she goes through the weeks ahead and will buy some scales to weigh her as well to keep on eye on her weight gain.

Thanks again for all the advice ..

Congratulations on your first corn. It's clear from your questions that you care a lot about the animal, so you'll fit right in here! You've already gotten excellent responses to your questions so I'll just add another voice of welcome! (And yes, we love pictures!)

Tray, welcome to the group. I wanted to add one thing that wasn’t mentioned above. People who are new to snakes have a hard time understanding how slow a snakes metabolism is. Snakes are a lot different than mammals. When a snake eats a big meal it takes it a long time to digest the food. If it eats too big of a meal the food sits in its stomach and rots before it can be digested. This will cause the snake to regurgitate. That is something you want to avoid at all costs because it is very hard on the snakes system.

Another thing to consider is that snakes in captivity tend to eat too much and exercise too little and end up fat. The reason I point all this out is that it is better to error on the side of caution. Be careful to not over feed, too large of prey or too often. A two year old snake should not be fed more than once a week.

Good luck with your new snake.

wade said:

Tray, welcome to the group. I wanted to add one thing that wasn’t mentioned above. People who are new to snakes have a hard time understanding how slow a snakes metabolism is. Snakes are a lot different than mammals. When a snake eats a big meal it takes it a long time to digest the food. If it eats too big of a meal the food sits in its stomach and rots before it can be digested. This will cause the snake to regurgitate. That is something you want to avoid at all costs because it is very hard on the snakes system.

Another thing to consider is that snakes in captivity tend to eat too much and exercise too little and end up fat. The reason I point all this out is that it is better to error on the side of caution. Be careful to not over feed, too large of prey or too often. A two year old snake should not be fed more than once a week.

Good luck with your new snake.

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I have to clarify that I am total agreement with Wade, and others here, that once a week is plenty, if not too much. The above feeding cycle was just to stabilize that particular snake and used as an illustration of what can happen in a bad case with a snake on the edge. I didn't realize this snake had only been fed pinkies at 2 yrs of age, and thought it was simply a younger snake. After the 2nd regurge the facts began to surface and that was when I came to realize the needs of this particular snake. It was a hell of a learning experience, and I don't wish it on anyone......I put it out there for the example, and definitely not as a suggestion for any kind of average feeding routine.In general, I feed all my snakes over a year old every 10 days or so.