Corn Snakes

[Sevaede]

Eventuallly...

I would like to add a corn snake to the family. My husband is dead set on his leopard gecko.

To all of you who have corn snakes... What do you feed? I am not thrilled with the idea of having to touch thawed mice. It is making me gag to think about it (not that it's a mouse, because everything has to eat, but because it's dead and a furry/wet combo *shudder*). :p I know that in the wild they start out eating lizards and amphibians and then graduate to rats and birds.

I was wondering if it would be feasible to raise our own anoles and (humanely PTS, of course) and fed to me little snake?

Just as an fyi... I have *NOTHING* against anyone who feeds mice. No qualms about it. I just, personally, have a weak gag reflex and my natural response is to gag at something dead and/or wet. Heck, I can't even pick up a hairball because of the negative repercussion. ;)

Thanks all! :D

[BitsyNaceyDog]

Our corn snake eats either mice or rat pups, whichever we have in the freezer.

I have 2 suggestions-

1) If you feed frozen/thawed mice and you don't want to touch it you can use a pair of tongs to pick up the mouse.

2) If you'd rather kill them yourself than buy frozen then I'd suggest using an air tight container with dry ice. Our ball Python won't eat frozen/thawed mice so my husband has to kill them himself. He puts the mice in one of these (http://www.petsmart.com/global/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=84552444180 8388&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302047894&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=2534374302023695&bmUID=1167501606669&itemNo=1&In=Small+Pet&N=2047894&Ne=2) carriers and then puts that in an air tight container with dry ice. You have can't let the mice touch the dry ice because it will give them frost bite.

My concern with feeding anoles would be that it's too small of a meal for an adult corn snake. You'd need to feed the snake several each feeding. We feed our corn snake a couple mice each week and a mouse is a lot bigger than an anole. I can't innagine how many anoles an adult would eat. I really don't know anything about feeding anoles to a corn snake though, I'm sure others can help you better.

Have you thought about any other kinds snakes? We for a very short time had a ribbon snake, they eat fish!

[ramanth]

Our cornsnake eats frozen/thawed pinkies at the moment. She's not big enough to eat mice.

I don't even touch them. I just pour a pinkie out of the bag into a small zip lock baggie. Seal it up, place the bagged pinkie in a bowl of warm water for 15 minutes.

Then dump the pinkie into Lucy's feeding tub. :)

Like Kari said, I'm not sure anoles would be enough to feed a full grown cornsnake.

[Sevaede]

Ahh, crud! I forgot to check back. Thank you both much! :D

I agree. I was thinking about how small full grown anoles are compared to full grown cornsnakes.

You both provided easy solutions so I'm going to go with them! :D

[TamanduaGirl]

Yes it is possible to raise your own anoles. I haven't done so but looked into it as a possbility for snacks once I get my fennec since they eat lizards as part of their wild diet. Google gets lots of sites on anole care and raising them http://www.anapsid.org/anole.html there was a site I saw on raising them for food for larger lizards somewhere but can't find it now.

[TamanduaGirl]

"Anoles and other lizards provide the main food source, and as such, baby corn snakes often prefer lizards over mice. "
http://www.moreptiles.com/

Feeder anoles and geckos
http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog/feeders/feeder-lizards/
http://market.kingsnake.com/detail.php?cat=28&de=405187