I was being stupid when buying this corn snake

[Mikoh4792]

It's about 1 1/2 ft so it's still very young, however I forgot to ask the owner whether or not it was captive bred or wild caught. Just slipped my mind. It arrived today and it's a very nice looking classic corn(I'll post pics later when it settles in). However I just realized to ask the owner and found out it is a wild caught from some area called "Devils garden" in Florida.

I don't know much about wild caught specimens. Do they live shorter lives in captivity, even when brought in as a baby(such as mine)?. What should I watch out for?

Before I put it in it's enclosure, I checked it out and it's a very clean and vibrant animal. No signs of mites or any injuries. Although I know it may have internal parasites and diseases. What should I do?

[Starbuck]

generally with reptiles, the risks of WC animals are a) internal parasites b) external parasites, and c) trouble feeding. WC baby snakes often eat frogs and small lizards, before switching to mammals once they get older. I would definitely not handle it for a week or two ,until you can confirm that it is eating regularly. I would offer pinkies first (or appropriately sized mice) and go from there. Best of luck.

ALSO! IF you have other reptiles/snakes, be sure to keep your new addition well away from them, in a separate room, with separate cage furniture, water bowls, etc, for at least 3 months. I also wouldnt think it was a bad idea to take it to a vet for a fecal test/wellness exam after a few weeks (that way you can report usual and unusual behaviors to the vet).

[smy_749]

I hope you didn't pay much for her. Normal looking captive bred corn's are basically free, can't imagine putting a price tag on a wild caught one being that cornsnake market is so saturated.

[Mikoh4792]

Paid about 25 dollars for him.

Thank's starbuck I'll listen to your advice. Have any of you guys ever had any success with wild caught specimens?(No parasites, diseases, becomes docile gradually with handling...etc) or are most wild caught snakes more than likely to have these issues?

[RandyRhoads]

Paid about 25 dollars for him.

Thank's starbuck I'll listen to your advice. Have any of you guys ever had any success with wild caught specimens?(No parasites, diseases, becomes docile gradually with handling...etc) or are most wild caught snakes more than likely to have these issues?

I don't know how others feel about it without seeing symptoms, but being WC I would start a treatment of Fenbendazole right off the bat, listen for any RI, check for ticks, mites, and scale rot.

I don't know about corns, the species probably has something to do with being able to calm it down, but I have had other species of WC calm down.

[KORBIN5895]

I deworm all of my new snakes.

[possum]

I usually wait to de-worm snakes until they settle in & feed reliably, mostly because de-worming adds to their stress-load. They can live longer with a few parasites than they can without feeding, & while Fenbendazole has a decent margin of safety for snakes, you want an accurate weight (to do this on your own) or you can see the vet (most want to see the snake, not just the stool sample); either way, the snake is stressed.

Corns make great pets...a young w/c will hardly differ from one that's c/b as far as making a calm pet. In fact, every clutch I've hatched has always had some that were more feisty than the rest...the instincts are there no matter where they hatch. If you are patient your snake will sooner or later realize you are not trying to eat it, & relax. (anything that picks up a snake in nature is normally a predator, & remember how BIG we are?) Hatchling corns can't even break the skin when they bite anyway, so at a whopping 1 1/2' I don't think you need to worry much about bites, lol...

Wild caught snakes from humid places like Florida might tend to have more & varied parasites, but snake mites are mostly found on snakes in petstores & coming from second-rate breeder/suppliers. (snake mites are not native) Keep in mind too that while w/c snakes may have worms (or ticks etc), they defecate & move on...while their less-fortunate captive cousins in dirty cages & little space can re-infect themselves, & mites can multiply explosively & kill a snake. There are risks either way. It's mostly the ethics of leaving nature where it belongs that makes me recommend a good breeder to supply a pet snake. Good luck with your new pal!

[Mikoh4792]

Thanks for all the informative replies. How do I de-worm a snake? I already bought fenbendazole from lllreptile because I know I'm going to want to de-worm this wild caught one. How do you guys usually go about doing it?

[RandyRhoads]

Thanks for all the informative replies. How do I de-worm a snake? I already bought panacur from lllreptile because I know I'm going to want to de-worm this wild caught one. How do you guys usually go about doing it?

It's a pain in the ***, I gave an IM injection to mice, then fed them.

I hope you're good at math. First accurately weigh your snake. What concentration is the Panacur?

[Mikoh4792]

It's a pain in the ***, I gave an IM injection to mice, then fed them.

I hope you're good at math. First accurately weigh your snake. What concentration is the Panacur?

What does IM stand for?

It says " Safegaurd Dewormer - 25 gram tube 100mg/g"

Sorry my mistake. It is not panacur. It is fenbendazole

[possum]

IM means intramuscular, in other words an injection.

I prefer to avoid injecting snakes & I have no trouble dosing orally*. Fenbendazole (brand/trade name Panacur) comes in a paste form for deworming horses, given orally; the tube is 25 grams of 10% paste (100 mg/g). Obviously snakes require a tiny fraction of what is given to horses...you need an accurate gram scale & some math skills...if this is all new, please have the vet do it. I don't off-hand recall the dose per body wt. for snakes. Fendbendazole given orally does have a decent margin of safety for snakes, but snakes are fragile when it comes to drugs & chemicals. (*tube-feeding a snake has been the most useful skill for me over the years)

[RandyRhoads]

IM means intramuscular, in other words an injection.

I prefer to avoid injecting snakes & I have no trouble dosing orally*. Fenbendazole (brand/trade name Panacur) comes in a paste form for deworming horses, given orally; the tube is 25 grams of 10% paste (100 mg/g). Obviously snakes require a tiny fraction of what is given to horses...you need an accurate gram scale & some math skills...if this is all new, please have the vet do it. I don't off-hand recall the dose per body wt. for snakes. Fendbendazole given orally does have a decent margin of safety for snakes, but snakes are fragile when it comes to drugs & chemicals. (*tube-feeding a snake has been the most useful skill for me over the years)

The IM injection was in the food, not the snake.


The dosage is 100mg/kg PO (orally). KG not pound.
If you don't feel comfortable doing the math and administering yourself, doing what possum said and having the vet do it is a good idea. I've done a ton of drug calculations before and when I dosed mine I still got a headache and had to correct myself a few times.

[Mikoh4792]

Well I have a scale coming in tomorrow so I am going to weigh the snake. I can't know for sure until I weigh it but from guessing it seems to be around 10-15 grams. So the dosage if I am correct would be around 1 to 1.5 mg's.

^ That's just an estimate but if that turns out to be true I can just inject 1 mg into the mouse I feed it? How often would I use fenbendazole?

[RandyRhoads]

You're correct, if your snake weighed 10 grams your desired dose would be 1mg.

The problem is your tube is designed for horses, and comes in a concentration of 100mg/g.

So how are you going to get out and administer 10mg of paste, that's like a speck on the end of a toothpick, and impossible for the average person to weigh.

So now you have to add more to the confusion and dilute the substance to a new concentrate.

[Starbuck]

my local vet college will do fecals for free for exotic pets; you just have to drop off the sample on the correct day of the week (when students are doing their rounds). Then you can find out if you even need to worm it at all.

Alternatively, bring it to a vet, get a wellness check, and have them dose the snake, and you dont have to worry about it at all :P

[Mikoh4792]

I tried to find a list of vets around my area but they all seem to specialize in mammals(dogs, cats, small animals(hamsters,ferrets...etc). Under each of their descriptions it does say "reptiles" but it seems like they all just checked everything in order to look like they know how to treat everything. Do vets like these know what they are doing? I also checked out their bios and it says nothing about reptiles. Honestly, I would rather do it myself. How do you guys measure 1mg? do gram scales even measure that low?

[possum]

The IM injection was in the food, not the snake....

Ah, thank you for clarifying that...I've never heard of it injected before & was wondering if it was available in a different form, but I have been known to hide it in prey animals. That's been especially useful for things I don't wish to tube-feed it into (like rattlesnakes, LOL). The oral cavity on the rodent works very well...& the snake is none-the-wiser. This method could also be useful for one who is afraid to tube-feed a snake, btw.

(and thank you Randy Rhoads, I'm so glad I'm not the only one who "gets a headache" with these calculations! It's been a while since I've needed to dose any, also.)

[Starbuck]

mikoh, with a snake as small as yours, i honestly would not dose it yourself.
I doubt you will kill it, as corns are hardy to begin with and as mentioned panacur has a pretty broad range of effective dosage;

But for a HATCHLING animal that does not even have a confirmed parasite burden, that is recently brought into captivity and is already stressed, i wouldnt recommend stressing it further by bombing its system with a poorly measured (you are very, very unlikely to be able to accurately measure the dose needed on a scale appropriate for weighing your snake, we are talking 0.1 grams here) dose of a drug.

Just my two cents. Honestly, i would just keep it, feed it, keep it away from other snakes if you have any, and wait until it gets bigger and more established to treat it. Any parasite burden it has now is unlikely to kill it as long as husbandry is spot on.

[Mikoh4792]

mikoh, with a snake as small as yours, i honestly would not dose it yourself.
I doubt you will kill it, as corns are hardy to begin with and as mentioned panacur has a pretty broad range of effective dosage;

But for a HATCHLING animal that does not even have a confirmed parasite burden, that is recently brought into captivity and is already stressed, i wouldnt recommend stressing it further by bombing its system with a poorly measured (you are very, very unlikely to be able to accurately measure the dose needed on a scale appropriate for weighing your snake, we are talking 0.1 grams here) dose of a drug.

Just my two cents. Honestly, i would just keep it, feed it, keep it away from other snakes if you have any, and wait until it gets bigger and more established to treat it. Any parasite burden it has now is unlikely to kill it as long as husbandry is spot on.

Sound advice. I'll probably wait half a year or a year then see how it does. By then I will probably have found an actual vet who specializes in reptiles and I can get him checked out.

Do most wild caught animals have parasites? As in statistically do more than half of wc snakes come with them?

[KORBIN5895]

mikoh, with a snake as small as yours, i honestly would not dose it yourself.
I doubt you will kill it, as corns are hardy to begin with and as mentioned panacur has a pretty broad range of effective dosage;

But for a HATCHLING animal that does not even have a confirmed parasite burden, that is recently brought into captivity and is already stressed, i wouldnt recommend stressing it further by bombing its system with a poorly measured (you are very, very unlikely to be able to accurately measure the dose needed on a scale appropriate for weighing your snake, we are talking 0.1 grams here) dose of a drug.

Just my two cents. Honestly, i would just keep it, feed it, keep it away from other snakes if you have any, and wait until it gets bigger and more established to treat it. Any parasite burden it has now is unlikely to kill it as long as husbandry is spot on.

An 18" corn snake is hardly a HATCHLING .

[RandyRhoads]

mikoh, with a snake as small as yours, i honestly would not dose it yourself.
I doubt you will kill it, as corns are hardy to begin with and as mentioned panacur has a pretty broad range of effective dosage;

But for a HATCHLING animal that does not even have a confirmed parasite burden, that is recently brought into captivity and is already stressed, i wouldnt recommend stressing it further by bombing its system with a poorly measured (you are very, very unlikely to be able to accurately measure the dose needed on a scale appropriate for weighing your snake, we are talking 0.1 grams here) dose of a drug.

Just my two cents. Honestly, i would just keep it, feed it, keep it away from other snakes if you have any, and wait until it gets bigger and more established to treat it. Any parasite burden it has now is unlikely to kill it as long as husbandry is spot on.


Even worse, .01gs of paste. Like I said, a tiny dab on the end of a toothpick size.

Kim has a good recipe for diluting it with Pedialyte, making it much easier to work with. Maybe she will drop by and help, or shoot her a PM.