#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!

#Okay like I love you all but some of y'all got some fat-assed snakes #It's okay tho because the current available resources are woefully lacking #That's literally why we're doing this #for real #science #commit science #community science #snake #snakes #reptile #reptiles #reptiblr #corn snake #corn snakes #give us your data #signal boost #google forms #snake husbandry #snake keeping #snake feeding #snake growth #corn snake husbandry #we're doing something nobody has done before and it's wild

[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:

#not a rating #my snakes #ed #snake feeding #snake crimes

[hogteeth]

My clean boi has his appetite back :]

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

#pumpkin #frozen thawed #animal death #snake feeding #hungry hog #plains hognose #hognose #hognose snake #western hognose #reptile #snake #reptiblr #snekblr #snakeblr #my snek #oc

[ruthlesslistener]

She decided to finish her dinner underwater, the absolute madwoman

#my pets #miss juniper everythingbagel #ball python #snake feeding #f/t prey #what a way to be reminded that for snakes breathing can be optional

[sunfish-exotics]

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

#reptiblr #snake feeding #chilabothrus striatus #Pituophis vertebralis bimaris #tanager #sugar pine

[goddamn-grammar-blog]

Warnings: snake feeding.

Jinsin's been here a week, settling in. He came out and checked things over earlier in the week, and as of tonight has taken his first meal in his new home 😁

Because I don't want to really disturb them when they're new, here are the very poor quality pics I've managed to get of him

#reptiblr #reptiles #snakes #reptblr #snakes of tumblr #rosy boa #snake feeding

[sakura-fraust]

Snakes are just funny sock puppets tbh

#Evelynn Fraust #snek #ball python #snake feeding #they just look so goofy... #how am I supposed to take her seriously #lmao

[fellowshipofthenoodles]

✨🤌🏻MMM BAWS🤌🏻✨

[ID: Banoffee the yellow and white ball python with black speckles eating a frozen-thawed African soft fur mouse backwards]

#Banoffee #ball python #python regius #reptiblr #snake #the noodles #snake feeding #tw dead animal

[thesassysneks]

The most gentle strike! Crawley’s first meal after his first brumation. He’s such a sweetheart!

#snakes #the sassy snakes #Crawley #snake feeding #target training

[omg-snakes]

Idk if this had been asked but anyways. Do you know at which age a corn snake is the size enough to stop with the pinkies and which is the proper size of the next mice to feed the snek? And how do you get pinkies? I've been looking in various places but they either have only adult mice or don't have at all

Hey friend!

I buy pinkies in bulk from RodentPro when my mouse colonies can't cover my needs (like this year). It can be inconvenient to buy in bulk, though. If your local small pet shops or big box stores aren't offering appropriately-sized frodents you may want to connect with other snake keepers in your area and do a group buy to save on shipping and prevent feeder waste.

My feeding guideline is to offer a meal that's about 15-20% of a snake's weight until they're about 200 grams, at which point that backs off to 10-15%.

Body weight and body condition, not age, determine feeder size. I move from xs pinks to regular when my babies reach 10 grams, then up to large pinks when they're around 16-18 grams, and so on. I tend to aim closer to 15-18% body weight for meals because I prefer a slow and steady growth rate. I monitor body condition carefully to ensure my snakes are gaining length and not just girth.

I also have the luxury of breaking feeders into sub-classes by weight. Not everyone has the time to bother, but feeder sizes are not well standardized so I will break out my scale and verify when I'm sorting home-grown or purchased feeders.

xs pink: 1-1.5 g

pink: 2-2.5 g

lg pink/sm fuzzy: 3-3.5 g

fuzzy: 4-4.5 g

lg fuzzy: 5-7 g

hopper: 7.5-13 g

weaned/sm adult: 13.5-18 g

adult: 18.5-30 g

If you don't have an inexpensive kitchen scale to monitor weight, I strongly recommend getting one. Basic models that measure to .5 of a gram are around $10-15, so it's not a huge investment and it'll help a lot in ensuring your snake is on a positive growth trajectory as well as informing feeding decisions.

I hope this guide is helpful!

#answers to questions #text post #long post #snake #snakes #reptile #reptiles #reptiblr #corn snake #corn snakes #snake keeping #snake care #snake husbandry #snake feeding #snake food

[brieserker]

TW: SNAKE FEEDING

I don't know why, but watching him eat today especially has me like "you are the most beautiful idiot of them all, baby boy"

#tw snake #tw snake feeding #snake feeding #tw mouse death #mexican black kingsnake #mbk #my son is so child

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

Is it true that some snakes just won't take f/t food no matter what you do? Do you have any snakes that won't take anything other than live? I want to get a snake but I really don't want to feed live food.

Let me put it this way: I've worked with hundreds of snakes, many of which were rescues who'd been fed live their whole lives, and even quite a few wild snakes who needed to be rehabbed and obviously had never even seen frozen/thawed food. I have never, not once, met a snake who wouldn't take f/t eventually.

The vast majority of snakes I've owned whose previous keepers swore up and down they wouldn't take anything other than live were established on f/t for me within a couple months. I have never met a single snake too picky to eat f/t, and I think the problem is many people just get jumpy and impatient when a snake won't eat.

The trick is you just have to be more stubborn than them, that's literally it! Step one is making sure your husbandry is exact, snakes always eat best when their conditions are appropriate. From there, it's just patience. There are tricks to make f/t food more appetizing but that's what it boils down to at the end of the day!

On the bright side, when you're looking for a pet snake, you can take steps to make this as easy as possible on yourself and your new pet! I recommend always asking breeders to make sure their snakes are well-established on f/t food before you buy.

#not a rating #snake feeding

[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

#frozen thawed #animal death #succulent #cronch #snake feeding #cinnamon #pumpkin #hungry hog #plains hognose #hognose #hognose snake #western hognose #hoggy #reptile #snake #reptiblr #snekblr #my snek #reptile keeper #oc #snakeblr

[allosaurusrock]

Second time he’s eaten at home, was not meant to be fed head first but we offered him the head and he grabbed the stomach and rotated it awfully. We will get better at it.

#animal death #snake feeding #snake #corn snake #petblr #scraps tag

[ruthlesslistener]

Tw: f/t råt feeding

It's Junie's gotcha day! And while its hard to say what a reptile feels or if happiness is possible for them, Juniper's enthusiasm for her meals sure does indicate at least some form of excitemenr

#miss juniper everythingbagel #snakes #snake feeding #her feeding day range just so happened to coincide with it lol #which was a happy accident

[sunfish-exotics]

The vertebralis were the only snakes who were not into (and didn’t eat) their reptilinks last night. I think I’ll heat them more the next time I offer. They’re shy eaters in general and normally drop feed so I’ll put a little more effort into showing them it’s food next time as well.

The hognoses on the other hand… say thank u for the sosidge

They’re eating the rabbit/quail/egg variety. The boys and smaller Pituophis got megablend.

#snake feeding #reptiblr #western hognose #Pituophis vertebralis