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Help, not experienced with cornsnakes!

M

Mchristy

New member
I just offered to take an itty bitty baby cornsnake from a friend of mine who is having NO luck getting this little guy to eat. I raise boa's and pythons but have no experience with cornsnakes. This guy is less than half the size of my hatchling boas! My friend has had him for roughly 7 weeks and bought him from a local Petco. He has not even taken ONE meal since being purchased. My friend feeds f/t and has tried normal thawing, warming, braining, tease feeding, cutting the pinkie in half, everything we could come up with. This little guy is horrendously skinny and hardly moves now. I'm really worried he won't recover! Any help to get him to eat would be GREAT. Also, I have virtually NO access to live pinkies in town and no funds to get him to a vet right now. His enclosure is set up pretty well. 85-87 warm side, 72-76 cold side. Two hides on each side and a shallow water dish in the middle.
 
Nanci has a thread on feeding some stubborn babies. There is also a thread for force feeding a baby corn snake. I will try to locate the links.
 
I have no experience with non feeders, but our little corn went MIA in our house for 2 1/2 months. When we found her, she was under 10g and was pretty severely dehydrated. Very lethargic and it really didn't seem like she had much life left in her.

I was told by the reptile rescue that corns will not eat if they are dehydrated. So we gave her a few quick 5minute soaks over a few days, which she had tiny drinks.
After a week and a few feeding attemps, she still wouldn't eat. I tried braining, half pinky, leaving her with the pinky for 24hrs, etc.
I figured she was too far gone, too weak to even think about eating.

But my bf was determined to try everything before giving up ( We were going to surrender her to the reptile rescue to see if they get her to eat). He took a pinky and gently teased her (smacking her with it) for about 20min. when she must have gotten so annoyed that she finally struck at it! I refused to try this method because I thought it would stress her out but it worked! When she struck at the pinky, she was latched on and continued to eat it! It's been about 6 weeks, and she has eaten perfectly every 5 days! So don't give up!

I'm sure this is not a preferred method, but I guess when your in a predicament when you've tried all other options, anything is worth a shot. Read Nanci's threads, and see if that helps.

Wishing you the very best!!
 
I'm going to try leaving it in a closed container with a brained pinkie tonight. Hopefully being trapped with the pinkie will eventually persuade it to eat it. Corn's aren't my forte but hopefully I'll be able to get this little guy to eat so his owner won't be heartbroken. By the way, he weighs a whopping 3 grams...
 
try just a pinkie head super-heated (boil it for a minute). That's what finally worked when our little non-feeder hit 3g. (she's all the way up to 12g now)
 
I would PM Diamondlil on this forum. She has had good luck getting nonfeeders to eat and is currently fostering another member's nonfeeder baby.
 
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