Growth Records of Karma ( normal cornsnake )

[ChristinaM]

I found it very helpful to see other's experiences on how their snake grew. So I will be posting Karma's growth, including feeds, weights, and sheds in this post. I will continue to just edit the post as I add to it.

Karma's introduction:

Karma came to me on March 3rd.
She was bred by Simon Fung of Extreme snakes.
She is a normal phase ( okeetee x charcoal, making her normal het charcoal ) cornsnake.

Her hatch date was July 9th/03.

She is quite the frisky lil girl right now. Very easily startled. But she is beginning to not play tag so much :)

Next post will be her records :)

[ChristinaM]

Growth Records:

FEED: March 3, 1 fuzzy and 2 pinkies
( she had not eaten for a few weeks, hence the large feed )

WEIGHT: March 8: 27.5g

FEED: March 13: 1 fuzzy
FEED: March 18: 1 fuzzy

WEIGHT: March 22: 29 g and approx. 14.25" long

FEED: March 23: rat pinky

SHED: March 29

FEED: March 29: 1 fuzzy, offered 2.

[Simon]

looking good~
hope that I can see it grow like promise~~

[HeatherK]

Thanks for posting that, I was curious about it and then saw the post :) She looks a lot like my girl.

Thought I should say, my exotics vet informed me that rat pinks lack too much in calcium compared to mouse fuzzies. Makes sense, but wasn't sure if it was a enough of a problem to be concerned with before I heard it coming from the exotics vet and tech.. so I fed them for a while and ended up having to supplement with calcium. Had I known for sure I would have alternated with mouse fuzzies (the rat pinks are big enough that you don't appear to have to move them up as fast as when they're on mouse pinks). I will be switching to rats again once she's big enough for them in fuzzies.

[ChristinaM]

ohhhhh, thanks Heather. I will definately keep alternating her then. I was not aware of that. :)

[Auskan]

I keep hearing different trains of thought on mouse fuzzies versus rat pinks. Right now mine kind of get fed according to availability as I breed both rats and mice. If a rat has a large litter and I can spare some pinks, and my corns are due to be fed, they get a rat pink. Otherwise they get mouse fuzzies.

[sapphire_moon]

I think rat pinks are just as well as mouse fuzzies. They have the mothers milk, which is high in calcium. The rat pinks made my corn grow like a weed. She is about 7 months old and about 2ft long (it's a guesstimate there, but anywhere from 1.5-2ft is good)

[HeatherK]

sapphire_moon, that's really interesting - I'd prefer to keep her on rats but I would tend to think even with the milk (that's if they recently had a feeding before death) that the calcium in a fuzzy would be higher. Although whether the snake needs it or not..

I really wish this information would be more available. It's not exactly a good thing to have to guess. I noticed even in the Corn Snake Manual - a reptile text - that there was nothing written about hypocalcemia or MBD (it's probably not common in snakes given their way of eating..).

I was given a copy of various protein foods, showing the percentages of fat, protein, phosphorus, etc. Unfortunately, rat pinks are not listed. All I can get off of it is 1-2 day old mouse, calcium % 1.6, Ca:P ratio 0.9, and 7 day old mouse, 1.4, Ca:P 1.1.

I was told that my snake looks too skinny but with the growth variation in corns it might be hard to say whether that's diet related or just a stage. I was advised to move to mouse fuzzies for a while so I will see if that makes a big difference.

[ChristinaM]

http://img6.photobucket.com/albums/v16/ChristinaM/Karma/kareat.jpg

pigging immediately after shed