• 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.

Acting like a baby?

Chazooie

New member
I just recently adopted a three year old corn snake, and he's very sweet. He does not try to escape, he's an albino motley and he's only bitten someone once. Yesterday though, he started to try and put my mother's thumb in his mouth. Not a strike or a bite, but like a human baby testing things. He did that to my eye as well, and I would like to know if it's something that I am doing wrong. He's in shed, so maybe he's just trying to find out what's around him?
 
he may be hungry.

Some snakes Chew and will try to swallow fingers thinking they are something to eat. Have you tried feeding the snake?
 
Several times. He may not be eating because we just moved him, but why would he be trying to put my eye and a thumb into his mouth if he didn't want to eat? he doesn't use his teeth.
 
Several times. He may not be eating because we just moved him........

He also might not be eating if you are offering him the wrong food or if the temperatures in the cage are incorrect. A corn snake needs 82 to 88 degrees to digest food. If it's too cool or too hot in the cage he might refuse food.

.......but why would he be trying to put my eye and a thumb into his mouth if he didn't want to eat? he doesn't use his teeth.

Like I said he might be hungry. Maybe he's uncomfortable in his cage but when you take him out he's not. (Just guessing).

It could be that he's just not used to you yet, and maybe he doesn't want to bite you, rather he's politely trying to tell you to leave him alone.

If he's a new snake, you should not handle him the first week anyway. He needs time to adjust to his new surroundings.

If it was me - I'd double check everything. Make sure the temps in the cage are correct. Make sure the bedding and accessories are correct. Leave him alone for a week, And then try to feed him again.
 
The lady who I got Bailey from said that the small baby rats were fine. his temperatures are right, but we've moved the heat emitter to the other side to get a better reading of the strip. It's right over his hide, and it says 80, so his second favorite place to hang out is under his water bowl, and that's closer to the heat emitter. I think he's in there now, but Jasmine (the reptile rescue lady,) says that he's okay because he's not acting nervous. He likes to take naps in people's hair too. We got the cage he was in and change out the ecoearth that Jasmine was using because it was dirty. We cleaned everything in the cage and the top, because she has a reptile room that's warm enough that her large-ish iguana can roam, and she likes to flick her tail after she goes to the bathroom. We tried moving him to a feeding box that we use for our ball pythons, so it smells a little more like prey. He was definitely interested, but he didn't strike or try to eat it. It doesn't seem like he wants us to do anything, so we think maybe he's just curious or enjoys having something to prop his mouth open with. Jasmine encourages us to take him out often so he can get more contact with people, because she couldn't take him out a lot because she has so many other reptiles and things to do.
 
I have many different species of snakes that like to "taste" things by gently biting just to see if it is edible.
It's like sharks test biting floating objects to see if its a food item or not.

Though temps in the 80's is ideal for digestion a corn snake can digest a food item in the 60's. In captivity we try to provide what is optimal :)
 
Back
Top