off feed?

[rwg]

Hey all,

Just wanted an opinion. My corn went more or less off feed about a month ago. She had been eating 1 or 2 adult mice per week up til then. I managed to get her to eat one fuzzy in the last 4 or 5 feeding attempts. Someone suggested to me that it might be because of breeding season. Just so you know, she's just over 3 feet, somewhere close to 250g, and approximately 2 years old.

This change also coresponds with a move to a larger custom home from a large rubbermaid, and a 40 gallon aquarium before that. She fed well and often living in both her previous enclosures. She has always been fed out in the open prior to this. We've now tried open feedings, dark bins, clear bins, and home enclosure feedings with very little interest in each case.

So, my question is, does mating season effect female feeding behavior like this very often? If not, can anyone suggest an alternative explanation?

rg

[vanderkm]

Our female corns feed heavily from the time they come out of cooling until they are near their pre-lay shed, compared with the males, many of which have had only one or two mice since the beginning of March.

Even though your female is young, and I assume has not been with a male, she could still be cycling with infertile eggs (slugs)being produced and feeling too full to eat as a result. This does occur and usually the female will often be very active and wandering around all the time seeking a place to lay - especially if she stopped feeding right before her last shed. You might want to give her a moist hide box just in case - slugs can be hard to pass for young females.

It is also possible that it is the change in cage, but we have found our corns don't seem as stressed by this as some of our other guys and it doesn't alter feeding. I think as long as she has secure hide boxes in the new cage, it shouldn't turn her off food.

Is there any chance she is really a male? Sexing errors are not uncommone and males definately go off feed in springtime - just something to consider,

mary v.

[rwg]

It is possible she is a male. We guessed her sex with a scale count of the tail. I know it's not exact, but she was well into the female scale count range, and nowhere near the male range from what we read. If she's a he, he's not very well endowed. ;)

rg

[rwg]

I think I may have figured it out. After posting the other night, I went and thawed 2 mouse hoppers which she took from inside her hide with very little trouble. Actually, I think she hit the first one with a defensive strike first, but she did bite, constrict and eat after that.

That got me thinking, what was different this time? Well, usually I thaw food for all my snakes in one container at the same time. About when she stopped feeding is also about when I switched my bull from mice to rats. Tonight as an experiment I thawed a rat fuzzy (about the size of her adult mice) for her. She completely freaked out. I waved it in front of her hide door. She bit it about 5 times, and then shot out the back door of her hide and across the cage. She just stayed in the opposite corner standing up in a triple 'S' position rattling her tail. Actually she looked just like my bull when he's riled up. And she has NEVER shown any aggression before this. My 2 year old handles her.

I think she's afraid of rats. I'm not even going to look at her for about a week, and then I'm going to feed her and the bull on different days for a while to see if it works out. Anyone seen this before?

rg

[vanderkm]

We definately have some corns that reject rats initially and some that won't eat mice that are thawed in the same tub as rats. Some corns took rats with no problem, but others seem quite intimidated by the scent. Sounds like you have solved your problem,

mary v.