Crazy corn - Mean as he11!

[jjnnbns]

My corn has been feeding well until about a week ago. She has been pounding mouse fuzzies, and tried to eat a rat pink but backed off as it seemed too big.

I put a smaller rat pink in today as well as last week, and she began to hiss and it even smelled like musk or something. She curls up like an 'S' shape and strikes at everything but won't eat the pinkie

I dont know what happened but she is very aggressive when I put her with food and tries to strike at me too. She stays this way for about an hour or so and then shes fine and as easy to handle as ever.


WHAT SHOULD I DO ???????????

http://bitz.net/~ato/Pictures/Brent/bloody%20mess.jpg

She kinda tore this guy up ( he was F/K)

[Lrptls]

i had a nasty baby corn before, when i got near it it would curl up, pull its neck back and rattle its tail, cutest thing ever. once i pickd it up it was fine though. do you feed the snake in a seperate containor? that helps a snake learn it doesn't eat in its cage and not likley to be agresive. i would check temps and humidity and make sure they are perfect with lots of hides. also it looks like its going to shed, i never feed when they are going to shed. hope this helpd

[urd]

by the look of her eyes she looks like she is going into a shed. this will usually make her reluctant to feed and she wont be able to see to well so may feel a bit threatened for a while and she wont be able to see its you( thus the striking).

p.s that pinkie looks a bit too big aswell. hoped this helped

[Dani33]

Not sure what to say except that some corns are just mean. My first purchased snake was a corn. She was a monster!!! She's the only snake that has tagged me in captivity - lol. I got her because of thier supposed docile temperment. She almost always rattled her tail when I approached and occasionally struck at me. My husbandry was near perfect. Just a meanie. I loved her anyway, she was a great snake!

[Big_V]

Im going to have to agree. The eyes on that snake are opaque (cloudy) so that explains why she is striking at everything because she knows your there and cant see you. She is just protecting herself. And that pinky looks a little big for her IMO...try to get something about half that size maybe.

[jjnnbns]

Shes been taking fuzzies bigger than that and she also has nice temps: 85 on hot and 76-78 on cool, 45-50% humidity. Its been about ten days since she ate last, and I saw that she is going into shed but she did this about 4 days ago too before any clouding or anything. Maybe after this shed she will be fine again. I also put a blanket over the rubbermaid (yes she is fed in a separate enclosure) with her and the pinkie. Hmmm... shes never been aggressive before...

[drewlowe]

I have to agree also, I belive it is from the snake getting ready to shed. Wait and see what happens. I have mistakenly tried to feed when one of my juvies were in shed and the same thing happend, the next feeding it went back to normal.

[gonesnakee]

First point - some snakes are afraid of Rats & will act exactly as you described your Corn did.
Second Point - Snake is in full shed in pic, why bother trying to feed it until after its shed.
Third point - Prey is too large for specimen. It is clearly twice the girth of the snake easy & you mention that you have been feeding it larger prey than that. Is there a reason for the power feeding? It is NOT a Python like your other snakes.
4th point - That Rat pinkie does not look like it was F/T. It looks very fresh like it was never frozen & has more fresh blood coming from it than any dead F/T prey I've ever used. IMHO it was live when first offered, not recomended.

Try smaller F/T prey after it has shed & you will probably be more successful. Mark I.

[MouseKilla]

Yup, that rat is too big... I don't see a reason to try to get colubrids eating rats anyway but maybe you have your own reasons. I have also noticed that corns are just as likely to feel threatened by a rat than to think of it as food. That combined with being bothered while in shed will naturally irritate the poor little guy. I know some people feed rats to corns and others feed snakes that are in shed but I don't really understand either practice.

If I were you I would skip the opaque feedings and resume feeding after he sheds with smaller mice. If you are trying to put size on him just feed more regularly with more suitable prey items.

[marisa]

MouseKilla- I am sure it's just because they probably have many other rat eating snakes so its easy to do all rats as corns do great on them.

But yeah they also do great on mice! I have used nothing else for mine and they are doing amazing...but I have fed the occasional rat.

I think the prey is too big. While my guys would take that down in a second, or many other peoples would....some just won't and corns, like Mark said are not pythons. They do not need huge huge meals at each feeding. Their natural prey is indeed rodents but its also many lizards. Anyways, as your snake grows the other problem with feeding a huge meal each time is males will get fat and lazy. And if not lazy, fat. Corns/kings etc are slender snakes normally who get massive amounts of exercise and activity in the wild. ANyways your guy is soo small over feeding really isn't a concern yet at all, but just some points to think about for the future.

I would leave him alone for a week. Let the shed finish...no handling, no checking, etc. Maybe even a towel over 75% of the cage. Then try a day old pinky. After its eating those, move it up to whatever size you think is best. :) My babies under a year do get large large meals, but they work up to it. And after a year things slow right down. :)

Marisa

[MouseKilla]

Marisa,

No doubt corns will often take appropriately sized rats, I've done it myself just out of convenience, but in doing that on occasion I have observed that some snakes definitely seem frightened by rats. I have one corn that absolutely refuses them and will hide until I take it away and another that will take them without hesitation. It almost seems that it depends on the individual snake's demeanor, some are just chickenshit.

I'm still battling this same problem with one of my BPs. She'll take mice every time but will usually turn her nose up at a rat even though she's big enough to be taking mediums. It's a pain because it's a choice between letting her fast or breaking down and feeding 4 and 5 mice at a time.

[jjnnbns]

I dont think that she is afraid of rats as I had one in there that my Jungle refused to see what she would do and she bit onto it hard! It was too big though and this one may be as well. I just figured that since she eats 2-3 lg pinkie mice or a pretty good sized mouse fuzzy (the same size as the rat pinkie) that it would be fine.

And yeah, I wanna see if I can get all of my snakes on rats as I would eventually like a 1.3 colony to cut down on feeding costs! I have no problem putting her on a smaller mouse for now, but the shop where I get my feeders has none right now, only day old pinkies or else sm adult mice

Thanks for the info though! PS does anyone know if corns musk? I dont know what that sour smell was but I assume it was her.

[sapphire_moon]

I'm pretty sure they musk.

As for putting corns on rats, I put my corn on rats simply because I run a rat colony and it is so much easier than paying 1.99 (about 2.38 with tax) per mouse fuzzy and almost 4 dollars per small adult mouse! When it cost like 62 cents to raise mine up to the size I need. And maybe about 20 cents for rat pinks, although my corn is now on week old rats :D .

She has grown faster (not power feeding!) And seems more ready to eat.
She will actually strike and coil now, where with the mouse fuzzy she would just slide along it for a few minutes, and THEN decide it was food and slowly start to eat it.

She was so eager to eat this last time I nearly got tagged for my first time from our 8month old baby corn! lol :)

[marisa]

"She has grown faster (not power feeding!) And seems more ready to eat.
She will actually strike and coil now, where with the mouse fuzzy she would just slide along it for a few minutes, and THEN decide it was food and slowly start to eat it."

Actually the "starting to coil thing" normally has to do with age, not prey item. many many corns don't constrict until they get a bit older. It's a pretty common pattern from what I have seen and heard.

Marisa

[Wizwise2000]

I find that my corn will constrict not because of age, but because of the size of the prey. I fed some small pinkies when I first got her, and she just swallowed them, then I moved up to fuzzies.

The first fuzzy was small and she constricted, the second, the same. Then she had regurged due to some stress I caused her.
So I fed her a very small fuzzy, which she swallowed, 2 days ago I put in a bigger fuzzy and she had constricted it.

So in my opinion, it's size, weather they think it's worth the energy or not to coil the prey.

Cheers
Shane