Not gaining any weight

[alinech20]

Hello again! I recently started to weigh my little Nyx using a kitchen scale (I know it's not very accurate, but I guess it's better than nothing and it was the best thing I could get).

As I said in my introductory post, she's about 4 months and 1 week old, I got her on Sep 9th. Before I got her, she ate three times (so that's 3 pinkies in 2 months), but since then I fed her regularly. Tonight was her 12th meal since I got her, but she won't gain any weight.

After her first two or three meals with me, I could see that she is gaining a bit of weight, but since then she seems to keep her weight constant.

I weighed her on Nov 8th before I fed her and she was 11-12g, tonight, before feeding she was 10-11g. We just got back from our second visit to the vet, so I am sure she has no parasites.

She is very active, even after she eats, I get her out every day for about 20-30 minutes (except after I feed her).

What should I do? Should I try to feed her 2 pinkies every 5 days? Or should I try to feed her 1 pinky every 4 days, instead of 5?

 

[Karl_Mcknight]

They only retain about 30% of the food weight, and as they get older that number drops.

Since you are feeding pinkies, your food weight is probably only about 1 or 2 grams. You can't expect much weight gain from that. Maybe a half a gram a week.

I would not feed 2 yet because she's too small. At 11 grams, she should be eating about 1.1 to 1.3 grams per meal. Most people don't go to 2 pinkies until they are about 20 grams. You still have a way to go.

She is very young and very small. "Slow and Steady" is the key.

 

[Nanci]

I'd follow the feeding chart, and feed at a five day interval. In addition, I would cut crosswise slits through the pink's skull and back, about four slits. You can use a tiny scissors like a fingernail scissors. This allows for better digestion, and a study has proved that babies gain weight faster on slit mice. Now, some people might argue that you don't need to be in a hurry for your baby to grow, but in my opinion, the faster they are out of the more fragile hatchling state, the better. Within reason

 

[alinech20]

I know that she is still young and small and I do not want to overfeed her either. But I saw many other corn snakes at her age that are between 15g and 22g and I thought that maybe I do something wrong. I pointed out that she is so active, because I thought that it may have something to do with this. Anyway, thank you for your replies, I already knew the feeding chart and I plan on following it. I did not know about the slitting trick, I will try it and see if there's any change. I posted the question because as Nanci said, being so small, she is more fragile.

Thank you guys, you are awesome!

 

[Dragonling]

Of my 4-6 month olds, many are still below 15g while only a handful are above 20g. Granted, I haven't been feeding very aggressively, mostly because I know I'm going to be stuck with most of them over the winter and I don't have the space for much larger housing until I sell off about half. My first corn seemed to grow so slowly, yet he was well over 300g by his second hatchday.

 

[Scrappyeddie77]

They do take some time to grow

This is the growth rate of one of my babies his hatch day was 7/14/2016 and I got him in October of 2016 and yes I know that I should keep a better recording of his growth. I was just getting discouraged at how slow he was growing but I knew he was healthy and happy so I just chilled on the weight. Not a big deal



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