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feeding our 983g new friend?

5

5280snake

New member
Hi,
Our corn snake details: 5'5" (168cm) 8 year old male
adult large mouse: 21g
Last week we adopted our first snake from a craigslist owner. The owner had never provided this guy any heat source and provided very non-specific information on their feeding routine. You can imagine that Colorado winters are pretty cold. We opted not to feed him for the three days it would take for a UTH & thermostat to be shipped. Yesterday, the UTH & thermostat arrived and we quickly tested out the temps and fed him. He was enthusiastic about the meal. Withing 10 minutes we could not observe a obvious lump once it got down around his middle section. Was the 21g mouse large enough for a snake of his size? Perhaps we need to provide 1 large mouse + 1 hopper size? My family plans to feed him on a 10 day cycle. Please advise.
 
Sounds good about getting the right equipment and waiting to feed. 21 grams is actually a small/young adult mouse, which might maintain him okay on a 10 day schedule but you could go bigger. Keep track of his weight and just make sure he's not gaining too much or losing any. Just my opinion but I don't think non-breeding adults are all that sensitive to exact prey size or exact meal timing. Within reason.
 
(by the way, I feed my adult female Venus jumbo mice simply because I have a huge bag of them from when I was breeding mice. She's the only one who can handle them, and she needed to gain a lot of weight back after laying two clutches of eggs.)
 
First, congrats on your new snake!
Can you post pics of your new snake? Some are just big, and not necessarily overweight, but some that size are overweight.
That will help determine where you should go with his feeding.
If he is overweight, I'd feed smaller prey, and space out the feedings.
If he is just a large snake, you could stick with an XL adult mouse (usually 30-50grams) and feed every 2-4 weeks, depending on his activity level, etc.

I agree that waiting to feed until you get appropriate heat setup in place.
 
with pics

Thanks for all of your responses. The 21g mouse was the largest my major petshop chain provided. With your responses I have began my research on mail order suppliers where true "large mouse" or jumbo will be more sustaining. :eatpointe

Opinions on my snake health, muscle tone or weight are welcomed! These images were taken 20 hours after the feeding. In the first pic is a small 6" (15.24 cm) ruler. The second cruising picture there is a yard stick 36" (91.44 cm) measuring stick.

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Wow, what a big and great looking guy. I don't think he's fat but he's not thin at all either. I've never fed a big adult just to maintain weight, so I will let someone else advise if you need to go out of your way to find bigger mice.
 
Very handsome fellow! Seems pretty well off for what sound like not the best previous life... hope he has lots of good years left woth your family! We got our snake at 7-8 years old too. I'm sad not to have seen her grow up but there's something to be said for a snake who's "been around the block a time or two".....
 
If finding giant mice is a problem, you could try a small rat as long as he's thick enough, which it seems like he is. Just a different suggestion.

Sent from my XT1042 using Tapatalk
 
I have given our snake, who is not as heavy as yours, a small rat once. It took him 26 minutes from start to finish to get it down , but he had no problem. I'm thinking your snake could definitely handle it. And when I say start to finish, I mean from starting to swallow to having it far enough down his body that he starts traveling around his feeding tank and is ready to be moved back to his main tank. That rat was around 40 to 45 grams iirc.
And your buddy there is beautiful :)
 
Thanks everyone for all of your compliments and input. The advice on this thread has been outstanding. Our objective is to maintain his weight to approx. +/- 2 g of his original weigh-in. Yesterday, 10 days after feeding he was 5 g heavier than our initial weigh-in. So we are opting to wait for the 14 days and then we will weigh him again. MysticExotics indeed knew that sedentary mature snakes will typically be fine eating every 2-4 weeks with adequate sized food.
To nicolefowler2005 - our tank size is a 40B.
 
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