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Snake Feeding:
Feeding your snake can be a huge factor in the success and failure of how your corn snake is kept as a pet. Here at reptiles-info we have provided you with a guide on what to feed your snake in order to give it a varied healthy diet.
Food Type:
Snakes will often eat a variety of meals this includes wild mice, rats, other mammals and small birds to make up the basis of their diet. All of the previous animals can be fed to your corn snake live, although it is advised that you feed your snake frozen animals due to the fact that if a live rat is placed within the snakes housing when it is not hungry the snake can often become the meal. I would advise that you use frozen mice as a staple diet this is because when the mice have been frozen it will kill off all of the parasites contained on the mice that can affect snakes, sometimes the mice may have to be offered to the corn snake warm. Prey can be offered to yo b snake by placing a dead rodent into the housing or by holding the rodent by its tail with a pair of tongs and positioning it in front of the snake so that the snake can strike at it. I also offer you a warning that you should not leave an uneaten mouse in cage overnight with two corn snakes as there is a risk that both of the snakes in the cage will attempt to eat the rodent at the same time meaning one snake may be eaten by the other.
Diet Supplements:
As you will be feeding you snakes on mice on other types of rodents they should be gaining all of their necessary dietary needs, vitamins and calcium room their current diet. It is also a wise decision to move your snakes on to large mice as quickly as possible this will help to provide more calcium due to their size. Therefore there should be no need to provide your pet snake with any form of additional supplements.
Food Size:
When you are feeding your corn snake it is best to take into account the size of the meal that you are offering to the snake. You should aim to feed baby snakes 'pinky' mice and moving the snake onto fuzzies then adult mice the older the snake gets. It is best to use a rule of thumb of feeding your snake prey that is around the same size as the snake's head this means that the snake can digest the prey easily.
Feeding Times:
It is best to feed your corn snake around once a week if they are adults and slightly more frequently as a juvenile this will help them grow and provide the necessary nutrients for them to grow into adults. Your snakes should also be fed one or two items that can be eaten completely in five to ten minutes this should be a healthy sized meal and be enough for the snake to digest in one sitting.
Water:
The water available to a snake must always be fresh and in a small un-tippable dish that should be kept in the cage at all times that enables the snake to drink from when they feel thirsty, the bowl should only be big enough to drink from and not be large enough so that your corn snake can bathe in the dish. Sometimes your snake may like to bathe in a large dish of water to aid its shedding process to do this you should provide a large bowl of water for a few hours on a weekly basis, if you leave the bowl in the cage for longer than two hours this can cause humidity problems leading to skin ulceration and other diseases to your snake.
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