My snake has anorexia :(

She's a full grown cornsnake and she's only eating once every three months or so!  I keep telling her that those skinny snakes in the magazines are all airbrushed anyway, but she just keeps wasting away.  Seriously though, we think she's sick and we are taking her to the vet again tomorrow morning.  When we took her twice before, he treated her intestinal parasites, but it didn't work. 

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fus eaction=viewImage&friendID=110102449& albumID=442764&imageID=3578429

She's beautiful!  Your comment about the skinny snakes in the magazines made me chuckle.  :)  I do hope she'll be all right, though...if whatever treatment the vet suggests doesn't work this time, either, have you tried calling around to see if you can find a vet who either specializes or is highly familiar with reptiles?  My cousin had a similar situation with her bird being constantly ill and nothing working.  Finally, she located a vet who specialized in birds and everything was great after that.

She's gorgeous!
But don't snakes usually eat very little anyway?

Though once every three months is hardly anything...
I don't know, we don't even have snakes in New Zeland (Homeland).

For a snake her size, once a month is typical, or even every two weeks.  Plus, she is visibly losing weight and was kind of weak when my husband picked her up yesterday.  Fortunately, our vet does specialize in reptiles, so with any luck he'll figure out what's wrong.

She's beautiful!  I'd get a snake, but it would make a quick snack of my three fat housecats and one year old Miniature Pinscher. :)
I hope all goes well with her! :)

I breed snakes (ball pythons) and the boys scared me for the first few years...... a few don't eat from about October to april every year!!!

Corn snakes need to eat more frequently then pythons but if she's an adult (4 years plus) once a month is fine....... every three is pushing it.

Does she eat frozen thawed or live, mice or rats?  What do you have her in (tank, enclosure, etc) and what are her temps like?

It's not anorexia, it's your snake being stubborn ;)

She eats small rats, usually frozen thawed, but sometimes fresh killed.  She's probably 4-5 years old, and about 4 and a half feet long.  She lives in a 20 long with a heat pad on half of the underside.  Sometimes she's really active, but other times she doesn't come out of her hide box for days.

Okay, so according to the vet our snake is gravid!  For those who don't know, that's the snake version of pregnant.  This comes as a surprise to us, considering we've had her since December and she certainly hasn't had any gentlemen callers.  Which means either the vet is wrong, or she's been eggbound since we got her.  I guess that could explain the refusal to eat and the resulting weight loss.  We didn't get a chance to talk directly to the vet today, but we'll certainly have a lot of questions tomorrow when we go to pick her up...

holy hell!  well congrats!

Snakes can hold sperm for up to a year (or more!) and it can happen super fast...... so it's not too strange if you've only had her for about 6 months.

I had a clutch of eggs last year from 2 different fathers, one she bred the YEAR before!  It was a nice surprize!

At least your other mysteries have been solved ;)

Congrats ~ Do we call you Grandma?
What are you going to do with all of your offspring?

well, she hasn't layed any eggs yet, so I won't count my snakelings before they're hatched ;) I'm not certain that she isn't going to lay duds either, but we did put an egg box in her cage.  Hopefully it isn't too late for her to lay them.  If they do somehow turn out to be fertile, I guess we'll see how the babies look, but probably give them to the pet store once they've started feeding.

Have you tried a semi-force feed? I wouldn't recommend a full on force feed if you don't know how or don't have someone who has done it before, but a semi could work. You just hold her head firmly but gently( and have someone else hold her body if she is wriggly) put the mouse up to her mouth. Sometimes that's all it takes, the natural instinct usually kicks in after that. But if it doesn't, you can push the mouse against her mouth gently to encourage her to open up.

My snake was a stubborn butt head for a LONG time, but finally he caught up!

I don't think changeofheart read the update.... can't force feed a pregnant snake ;)

sorry, kids, I did miss it. Hey, it was late! :)