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A very hungry snake

S

Snake101

New member
Hi everyone,

So Rodney, my 1 year old corn snake who weighs 88g just seems to be super hungry recently!

He is being fed one small mouse, this was once a week but he was fed 3 days ago and today he is out and looking for food. I know he isn't just exploring and he is definitely out looking for his next mouse! This is the second time this has happened. I just don't feel he is big enough to get 2 mice at the one feed. Is he just being a greedy snake? Is this the start of the road to obesity?

Thanks for your thought!
 
How would he get Obese?

Unless you cave in and feed him more than he should.

You stated you feed him a "small mouse." That's a pretty generic term since some people would call a Pinky, a Fuzzy, a Hopper, a Fluff, or a Small Mouse all the same. I would be interested in knowing what the mice you are feeding actually weigh?

A growing snake should eat about 10% to 13% of its body weight weekly.

Your snake weighs 88 grams (you stated) so you should be feeding mice around 10 grams. As he gets bigger so should the mice. If you are feeding mice of 4 or 5 grams, then yes, you should feed him 2. But if you are feeding mice around 10 grams, just feed him 1 per week, and so what if he's roaming around looking for more.

Let him look.
 
Snake101 said:
Hi everyone,

So Rodney, my 1 year old corn snake who weighs 88g just seems to be super hungry recently!

He is being fed one small mouse, this was once a week but he was fed 3 days ago and today he is out and looking for food. I know he isn't just exploring and he is definitely out looking for his next mouse! This is the second time this has happened. I just don't feel he is big enough to get 2 mice at the one feed. Is he just being a greedy snake? Is this the start of the road to obesity?

Thanks for your thought!
Click to expand...

Hi there Snake101! How ya been? Hope things in your neck of the woods have calmed down some since Trump made his visit and especially since the UK just voted to pull out of the union.

But politics aside, I have to agree with Karl on the dubious weight of what you term, "a small mouse," as that can make a huge difference in the overall health of your little sneaky one! I would go by the 10-15% rule-of-thumb on a weekly basis in terms of feeding Rodney.

That being said, Corn snakes are opportunistic eaters and might eat as much as you offer them. However, a growing snake should be fed on a weekly basis and that would prevent him from becoming obese OR skinny, so long as you feed him the appropriate sized rodent!

Is this your first and/or only snake? 88 grams doesn't sound too big for a yearling, though they all grow at different rates.
 
I have a corn snake just slightly larger than yours. She was 95 grams at last feeding. I feed her 8 to 9 gram mice. My supplier calls them hoppers, but over there I think they call them crawlers. I feed her once a week. They all start looking for food as soon as their last meal is digested, mine included. Hope this as well as the previous comments are helpful.

I weigh my mice but the other rule of thumb is a mouse 1 to 1.5 times the diameter the largest diameter of the snake. Once a week feedings are appropriate for a snake the size and age of yours.
 
Has it been quite warm there? I find really warm weather makes mine move around a lot more. I'm not sure if they are searching for cooler temps, or if they are simply digesting faster due to the higher temps and then hungry sooner. But I agree with the others, hungry sooner doesn't necessarily need to mean fed sooner.
 
I would guess that every animal's instinct is to search for food all the time. Remember, in nature they don't have their meals served on a silver plate. My Elsa has barely swallowed and adult mouse and is already looking to strike at something else ... All I keep an eye on is that she is growing. If at 1 year old he is stagnant then probably he's still hungry. I'm following the Munson plan and it worked beautifully. Elsa is about 300g now, a few months shy of her second birthday (When I got her she was 25g)
 
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