#snake feeding

[omg-snakes]

A sincere thanks to those of you who are sharing your snake data. Here's a little taste of what @talesfromtreatment and I have been cooking up, and this isn't even the really interesting stuff! This is only one week's worth of data capture!! Imagine what we could do with even more!

If you haven't submitted your corn snake's age, weight, and a top-down photo of them with a ruler yet, it's not too late! It's probably never going to be too late! Take the anonymous survey via Google Forms, linked below:

https://forms.gle/QtAwmiFa6fpBewFs8

Please join our body of community scientists and help us be petty in the most productive way imaginable. Your data will be used to make a gift for all corn snake keepers and breeders, present and future.

A project of this size has never before been attempted, or at least never published, and this is a super awesome opportunity for all of us to learn together!

Edit: swapped out the graph because the title said, "Width" when it should've said "Weight." Sorry!

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

okay i can't seem to append videos to reblogs of posts but here we are! have some footage of my long baby having his post-shedding meal

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

Have you had any Hilarious Feeding Failures to share about your snakes? I ask because today was feeding day for Latte and so far he's been a shy eater...he won't eat from the tongs, but if I leave his meal for him and go away it'll be gone in an hour. Well, expecting this pattern, I brought him today's meal. He was climbing on his ledges. I figured I'd let him smell it so he knew food was there and then leave it for him to find later. I did not anticipate this ball python would LAUNCH himself into space, coil his rat mid-leap, and fall into a plant. I had to untangle him and put him somewhere safer while he was still constricting lol. At least I know he's a bp with a good feeding response! Next time I'll have to make sure he's on the ground before we try a meal lol.

Bless his heart!

The funniest one I can think of happened with my Mexican black kingsnake, Ed. Ed is usually a pretty calm eater (by kingsnake standards) and politely takes his food from the tongs like a little gentleman. This is not true when he's had to skip a meal because he was in shed.

One time, after he'd had to miss not just one but two meals due to inconvenient shed timing, he got so excited to see the feeding tongs that, when I opened the doors to his enclosure, he just launched himself halfway out at Mach 8 speeds. His enclosure sat on a tall stand at the time so he wound up just kinda danging out and looking very confused.

Artist's depiction of the event:

[goddamn-grammar-blog]

Maize (f/t)

[reptileoddysey]

he really just looks like that, huh

[adolfusraptor1985]

Noodle

[hogteeth]

My clean boi has his appetite back :]

He scares me every winter by going 4-5 months without eating smh

[ruthlesslistener]

Toast has learned to compensate for a lack of arms by simply using his whole body to hold his r/at

[sandelion]

near perfect coil 9/10

[omg-snakes]

Hi! I have a question about feeding my 3yr old corn snake. Hes 340g and ive been trying feeding him every 14 days. But I cant seem to find mice that are big enough and he acts hungry all the time lately. Are rats ok once in a while or should I just give him more than one mouse all the time? Thanks!

Hey, friend!

Rats are okay and strongly encouraged. Corn snakes often do act hungry when they don't actually need more food, and they can beg themselves into obesity so be mindful of that. If his body condition is good or if he's a little lean, then he might be actually hungry.

A snake that size and age should be eating about 35-ish grams of food every 10-ish days, which is a large (but not jumbo) adult mouse or a large pup/small weaned rat. You can also offer two mice that add up to 35 grams, an extra-small chicken chick, or a small quail. Once or twice a year you can also offer ONE quail egg (they're very rich; just one is enough.)

Variety is the spice of life, so switch it up as often as you are comfortable doing!

Really, corn snakes probably shouldn't be eating only one species of prey their entire lives. We do this in captivity for our own convenience but, like, it's definitely not natural. We don't do this with any other animal we keep. Dogs and cats have different flavors of canned food and multiple types of meat and veggies/grains in their prepared dry foods. Insectivorous lizards (should) get different types of bugs on rotation. Even fish get more species variety in their food than snakes!

I should mention that corn snakes in captivity have become a little bit like "chicken nugget kids" where they are so used to eating one type of food that they might be hesitant to try new things at first, especially when it comes to rats. I suspect rats are less yummy-smelling than mice to the snake palate. You may need to poke a little hole with a pin in the head of a thawed rat to expose some brain. Brains are mostly fat and fat = flavor, so that's usually enough to convince a neophobic snake that what's been placed in front of them is, in fact, delicious food and not a weird warm fuzzy rock or a dangerous but strangely unmoving predator.

I hope that makes sourcing food a little easier going forward, and that your buddy is happy and well-nourished!

[billionneuronscurious]

Shield-tail Snake Hunting Earthworm.

This was the third time that I witnessed a Shield-tail Snake Hunting Earthworm. 

First time I saw it at Kaas, Second time I saw it in the outskirts of Satara city, and this is the Third time that I saw this at Raireshwar.

I have come across Shield-tail Snakes several times, but the species may have been different ones. Me after watching shield-tail snake hunting earthworm so many times, it appears, that the earthworm is their common prey, and this must be a common scene.

During this third encounter, while the snake in the video can be seen hunting earthworm, the snake later abandoned its hunt. The snake was observed leaving the earthworm and the scene. But, after snake vanished in nearby grass, and when I left the site, it remains unknown whether snake again pursued the same earthworm it had attacked.

Also, the earthworm appeared to have a tear on its body at one end. Whether the fight with snake somehow must have caused it, or it was caused by some other reason couldn’t be understood. This was happening on a trail, through which tourists were regularly passing.

-  Dhairyasheel Dayal

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

I have a kingsnake currently eating small adult mice but the other day I had my dad go to the store for mice and he interpreted "small mice" as "pinkies" .. is it alright to feed my kingsnake a couple pinkies instead of a regular small mouse for his next 2 feedings or is it better to just throw them out?

Hello hello - it's alright to give your snake smaller meals on occasion as long as you don't make a habit out of it! It's always best to feed single larger items as soon as you can just to ease the strain on your snake's digestive system and keep them as healthy as possible, but accidentally getting a few sizes down and having to do this for a couple weeks won't hurt him one bit.

[goddamn-grammar-blog]

Rio!

(ignore my dirty nails, I was rearranging plants before deciding to get him out)

And have a shot of Wisp unearthing herself for a meal

[sunfish-exotics]

A little sneak peek of some snakes I've been raising up

[hogteeth]

Pumpkin chomped the succulent trying to get his lunch smh. I'm glad it was him though, Cinnamon would have tried to eat the entire thing and not given up. He gave it a couple crunches and went bleh.

Luckily he still wanted his second one. He gets two because he's a lil slim after fasting. It's hard not to accidentally power-feed Cinnamon due to how food-eager she is, at least she doesn't eat them sideways and get a giant lump like this man tho

[ruthlesslistener]

She decided to finish her dinner underwater, the absolute madwoman