Hi all,
Got a problem with a corn snake, altho more of a mystery...

Anyhow, this snake is a carolina colour, 2 years old , 4 ft long (approx)
It has escaped from its tank no less than 4 times.....
the first time,it escaped from the frontroom and was eventually found in the kitchen by the cooker.
the second time, escaped from the front room and was found curled up in the dog bed, next to the washer.
the third time, it actually escaped from iits tank while it was in the sun in the back garden and it was found a week later basking under the tree
the 4th and most recent time, over xmas, it escaped indoors and was missing for a good 2/3 months and was eventually found in the house safe and well.

So this snake has the taste of freedom and seems to enjoy its little ventures.

It shed its skin about 2 weeks ago, had 4 medium mice and another 4 mediums the wek after... its always had 4 frozen mice, of each stage, every week,ever since a baby, its greedy and really loves its food.

this week it started to get hyperactive as it always does around the day its due its feed, so my mate went out to get its feed and came back, defrosted them,warmed them etc, then dangled them into the tank and waited for the snake to take them, but it just didnt take them, it was still hyper,looking aroundd the cage etc, but took no interest in the mice at all, different mice were tried and after an hour of no interest, one was left in the tank, but that wasnt touched.
Its been a day or two nw and the snale is still circling round and round , trying to get out and generally making a nuisance of itself lol

Me and my mate have been wondering why it would act in such a way ?
to be as active as it is, be off its food etc??
We came to the conclusions its either some sort of snake mating season or he just wants to break free again ??

any suggestions and is this normal ??

Indeed it is breeding season now! My male has been trying to escape for about a month now and only recently decided to eat something. Males go off their food and become really active this time of year...I'll add that 4 medium mice a week seems excessive and would be tempted to advise you to half that to avoid any weight issues. You can still offer food weekly or even fortnightly until he decides he's never going to find a female and give up lol.

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thanx for that
My mate who owns him, is thinking about getting it a mate to maybe stop it from trying to escape so much, as it really does have a nack for escaping but he will probs end up with two escapees next time instead

forgot to add, the snake looks quite healthy and lean.
He was only fed soo many mice as he just never seemed to be satisfied with 1 or 2 and after he ate the mice, he would circle and search for more, so on the advice of the local reptile pet shop, we was told to offer him one more each week intil he settled after feeding... which ended up being 4 a week.
asked my mate and he doesnt always eat 4 a week these days, so he has been cutting back on them himself by the looks of it lol

Corns are definately greedy little blighters, they'd happily eat until they burst lol. If your mate does put a female in there then he'd most likely end up with lots and lots snakies trying to escape You could try putting new items in the enclosure, I find mine love to investigate new things!

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Your lucky you got him back. Snakes are by nature escape artists and if there's a way out they will find it. Glass tanks and vivarium lids are not the best thing to keep them in. In fact a lot of the equipment used for keeping reptiles needs to be improved. There seems to be a culture of cramming them in little boxes.

The increased activity is normal throughout the breeding season and a number of males (not all) do go off their food during this period. But what you have to realise sooner or later a snake is going to have a period when it's not feeding.
In the the wild snakes are erratic feeders and do not have the regimented feeding regime which they get in captivity. Most people are completely confused by this and panic when they haven't fed for a while.
4 medium mice a week is a lot every single week and if that was to continue you would probably wind up with a fat snake with fat blobs usually around the tail but also on the body too.
You have to remember snakes are cold blooded and need very little to survive. Over 90% of what we eat purely generates body heat. Snakes don't have to bother with that.

With adult snakes sporadic feeding is the best. feeding them every two, three and four weeks depending on the size of their last meal.
Don't worry if they go a while not feeding unless they begin to lose weight.

escaping corn snakes must be a common thing then! mine has got out many time s(admittedly it was when his tank wasn't exactly brilliant..) and has been found in various places around the room, once under my sister's bed (that was HILARIOUS) and once when he got into the plumbing and under the floorboards, went missing for a good few days and was only found by chance when my brother was sweeping up outside and knocked a drain cover off to find him curled up underneath!!

have got him a proper viv now though, and the inside is nicely enriched with a few tunnels, hiding places etc so he seems content under his rock!

as for going off food at certain times, my corn (george) doensn't really go off it as i feed him every week or two randomly. so he never refuses a nice mousey

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The Family;
Molly the Border collie (6 years)
Mason the cross-breed (1 year)
Raymond the Kitten (6 weeks)
George the Corn snake (11 years)
Holly the chinchilla and Sam the degu
and lots of fish!

Thanx for that Paul, was interesting to read.

Especially the "cramming into little boxes" part lol this snake has a decent sized tank, with logs to climb about on and thick bedding which it lovees to dig into and curl up in, with a lid that is normally very firmly wedged into place, and were guessing it was pulled open on one side, by a child trying to have a sneaky peak and not shut down properly afterwards, hence the snake getting out.

Ive been told numerous times, that snakes dont need large spaces to live in, becasue they just spend all there time curled up, which i guess is why people cram them into small spaces.... but if i were a snake crammed into a small space, i too would just stay curled up all the time lol

Anyhow, there have been no recent dramas to hear about regarding this little escape artist, so Im guessing all is well again, I will however point out about the feeding part to my mate and see if I can get him to treat the snake more like it would be living in the wild

I pleased to hear you've given some thought to the quality of life of your snake. Snakes do spend a great deal of time lying around doing very little after they've eaten. But when they become hungry, they go on the move exploring their territory for food. This period of inactivity seems to some reptile keepers to be used to justify the practice of cramming them into small boxes for the rest of their lives. There are many hatchlings which are separated into cricket box size containers and are still in them over a year later. This practice is cruel. Many hatchlings kept this way are often left in their own excrement for long periods of time and often also left with regurgitated food in this tiny box. This lack of space retards activity and muscle development and slows their digestive system down causing feeding problems and in some cases death.

Many years ago I had 54 hatchling corn snakes dumped on me, but I didn't have the containers to keep them in. Instead I had 4fx2fx2f viv which I had built. All decorated with plastic hanging plants from the roof and many branches decorating the vivarium. I decided what I would do is to release all the hatchling corns into this viv and then removed all of the hatchlings at feeding time and feed them separately in plastic feeding tubs and then return them to the viv once they had fed. Ones which did not eat were kept separate until eventually they fed.

What amazed me was for the first ever in all the time I had been keeping snakes I could see snakes enjoying themselves. Young hatchlings exploring the vivarium climbing and stretching from branch to branch. Developing their muscles and building their up apetites.