Second snake regurgitated in a week! Please help!

Colubrids Corn Snakes
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I’m trying to keep this short concise and providing all necessary information since I can’t breathe and I’m terrified I’m going to kill my snakes. Today I found my yearning boy Eros had regurgitated the fuzzy he was fed yesterday at approx. 8 pm. I’m sure I’m going to get torn to shreds for this and hopefully I’ll be able to fix my mess up before I’ve hurt my snakes anymore. I’m also going to be posting this on the corn snake subreddit, I’m not trying to spam but I need all the advice I can get to help my snakes.

I got him from my friend on 9/9/25. When I got him he was 33.3g, and on double pinkies. 2 weeks ago he was 36.2g, When I weighed him yesterday he was at 35.6g, and the weight loss is concerning to me. He was upgraded to fuzzys 3 weeks ago (I would have upgraded him at 25g but I wanted to get him settled in before changing his feeders). He is a hesitant eater and slightly underweight. Eros refused a meal on the 6th of October due to being in shed, but ate the 9th after shedding. Today at approx 6 pm I found a black regurge from him. He has been cleared by my friends vet before I got him, but I’m going to be testing him over the next 3 months for Crypto and contacting my local vet to see if that’s the cause. I really hope I won’t have to give my friend that news since she has 4 other corns and it would destroy her. Thankfully everyone is quarantined in different rooms if it’s crypto but I really don’t want to loose him. My current plan is to try and schedule a vet visit to get a get a gastric lavage (though I live in a rural area with limited vet care for reptiles) If I cannot get one done I’ll be doing 3 months of crypto fecal testing, and make the trip over thanksgiving to a good vet about 6 hrs away. Eros believes he is a hognose and spends most of his time buried or under his water dish, and did when in my friend’s care, so I don’t if he is lethargic or acting differently. I plan on stripping his tank down to paper towels this weekend to try to observe him. He is in a 22g, and is only about 18 inches long, with overhead heat that’s automated. His immediate recovery plan is: water, mist his tank, and give him a large pinky coated with Nutribac (which I sadly ordered last week because my “partner’s” (aka mine but she got naming rights) 2 month old hatchling Schnitzel regurgitated.

I made a post asking about her regurgitation a week ago, but she’s a my 2 month old lovely hatchling and I suspect the regurge was caused from stress and a lack of heat due to changing her substrate and refilling it too high and stress because I had her at another friend’s house the previous weekend. I plan on upgrading her to a 22 gal with over-tank heating next weekend, and she has been active and hunting without any noticeable weight loss. I am switching to feeding her inside her tank since I think feeding her outside of it may have contributed to her stress. (I know it’s controversial but I like to be able to ensure my snakes don’t accidentally consume substrate and fully get the food down well) She will be getting an extra-small pinky head coated in Nutribac next thursday, and if she keeps it down I’ll keep her on extra-small pinky heads + Nutribac for 2 more feedings before switching to extra small pinkies. If she regurgitates again we’re going for an emergency vet visit.

Thankfully my yearling girl Madoka hasn’t had any issues, other than the fact she latched onto my finger when I was trying to put her back in her tank 2 days ago and I didn’t realize she was still in food mode. I’ve been recovering from a cold and kidney infection so I was on autopilot and didn’t realize she was still looking for food. The only difference in her behavior I’ve noticed in her is that she’s been less active and staying in her humid hide but she went into blue yesterday, and this is behavior she exhibits every shed cycle.

My current working hypothesis is that the feeders I got from the pet store were bad and I’m going to give them a call to see if anyone else has had problems with the mice. All mice were purchased on the 8th of October from my local pet store. I purchased 2 hoppers, 2 fuzzies, and 2 extra-small pinkies. I have had no problems before with their mice. My one concern is that I missed my bus and had to walk home for 30 minutes which might have led to them dethawing enough for bacteria growth. They were frozen solid when I bought them, and were still very cold and firm when I got home, but I’m worried I wasn’t quick enough. I’m also going to be checking my freezer temps.

Does anyone have any idea of what caused the regurgitation and how I can change my set up to prevent this? I will be posting photos of their tanks in the comments once I’ve calmed down enough to get up. Everyone has at least 1 large water bowl, Madoka has 5 hides and Eros has 3, Schnitzel has 2, and a water dish hide. All tanks are covered with silk flowers to the point you can barely see substrate and they all have branches for climbing. If anyone can help me figure out what I did wrong it would be deeply appreciated, I’m terrified I’ll accidentally kill my babies and will do anything I can to try and change my set up.

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First off, breathe, there is very little chance a snake will die due to a single regurg. You’re not going to get “torn to shreds” for something that happens to every single keeper. That’s not how we operate here.

Second, corns can lose weight from one weigh in to the next depending on how fast they digest, when they last pooped, all sorts of reasons. You’re overthinking a very small difference. You also mentioned that he was in shed during that time, they often tend to weigh more in shed, then drop a bit of weight after.

You mention he’s been on fuzzies for three weeks, what weight are the fuzzies you’re feeding? Not every snake is ready to move up at a certain weight, some snakes require smaller feeders for longer periods. Also, what makes you think he’s underweight?

In my opinion you’re overthinking things. I get being a newer snake owner can be a lot, and you want to do your best, but often times panicking can actually make things worse for you and your animals. From what you’ve said, it really doesn’t sound like a bad feeder situation, unless they were already bad before you purchased them. 30 minutes is not going to be remotely enough time for them to spoil if they were frozen when you started. To me it sounds like the fuzzy might’ve just been too big for him.

By chance are you using one of those feeding charts that gets passed around?

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I didn’t know that, thank you, that offers some comfort. The first fuzzy was 3g, the second were 4g. I’ve been aiming to feed him about 12% of his body weight to try to get him to a healthy weight, but I will be sticking to the 10% rule religiously. Yesterday I actually remember thinking I’ll need to grab him a larger fuzzy (that’s not happening anymore), since it barely made a budge in his body. I’ll try to post a photo but his back has a triagular shape instead of a rounded one. I try to feed my snakes based on 10% of their weight, but if I’m a rush I guestimate 1.5x their body width.

I haven’t had any regurges before this, and I’ve had Madoka since last November. I’m concerned since they popped up in such a close time to each other and was from the same batch of mice.

Here’s a photo of Mr. Eros. You can see the indent of his spine here. I actually took photos since I suspect he’s halo (which I’m convinced of now), after realizing Madoka (who was sold as Halo, very much isn’t)

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Looking at your photo, he really doesn’t look underweight at all to me. Their spines tend to be more prominent when they’re bending, which accounts for what you’re seeing as a triangular shape. If you wanted to, you could go back to feeding him two pinkies for a while since you know that works. I’ve got some snakes that are 40g and still on double pinks because I like to get them up to a good weight/thickness before increasing feeder sizes. As for feeder size in relation to width of the snake, 1.5x is the max you want to go, the most ideal is about 1.2x their width.

Sometimes regurges just happen close together but aren’t related. You mentioned there were stresses on your other snake, and being moved around and the enclosure changed is certainly something that can trigger a regurg in a younger animal.

Personally, I don’t necessarily think you need to go to the extreme of stripping the enclosure down, that might just cause more stress. If it were multiple regurges in a row, then I’d maybe consider it, but one is just a bump in the road. Same with Crypto testing. You can always pursue that just to be safe, but I wouldn’t really suggest putting a young snake through a gastric lavage without more concerns than this one incident. NutriBAC and a smaller meal in 14 days is definitely the way to go. The misting probably isn’t necessary unless you have serious humidity issues. As for your hatchling, you really only need to size down the feeder for one feeding unless she struggles with the next one. You don’t want to go too small for too long because they can actually burn calories digesting a meal if it’s too small. That’s why smaller feeders at larger intervals are suggested for overweight snakes.

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Thank you, I think I’ll give him a large pink on the 30th, would that be enough?Madoka only a few months older than Eros and more than twice his size. While I know sexual dysmorphism is at play, the size difference is shocking to me, and I worry part of it is because he’s a hesitant eater. I’ll be keeping him on double pinkies for a little while then. I live in a rainy climate so humidity is mostly fine (and I have to keep it low because of the mold risk), but occasionally the snake’s substrate will fully dry so I’ll mist around so it doesn’t get too dry (it’s never gone below 40%)

Edit: sorry for the typos, I’ve been going in between this and studying for my second midterm of the week and my coffee wore off.

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A large pinky should be just fine. Size can vary greatly based on hatch size, whether or not a baby started eating right away, missed meals, etc. You can’t really compare snakes 1:1 based on age alone, even if they’re from the same clutch. For example, I have two brothers who are two years and three months old. One of them is 156.5g, has always been a great eater, no issues. The other is only 50.7g because he was a problem feeder and liked to go on long hunger strikes. Both are the same age, raised in the same conditions, healthy, and in great body condition, but vastly different sizes solely because one was easy and the other more stubborn. No worries on typos, I hope your studying is going well and you’ve at least had some of your snake worries settled a bit!

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It has, I’m going to keep a close eye on him (as much as I can with him borrowing all the time) and hopefully he’ll be fine in 2 weeks. I got Madoka initially because she’s curious, social, and a good eater and I think I take her for-granted. I like to read breeder threads here, did you ever mention your boy? I think i remember a similar comment on a thread about a picky clutch about him lol. I hope he’s doing well, one of my friend’s ball pythons wouldn’t eat for a year and was still on the thinner side of healthy at the end of it before he decided to eat.

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I don’t know how much I’ve mentioned him specifically, though I do often mention my problem children. He’s doing great, actually. I’ve had several very stubborn ones since I’ve started out, both my own and those that were sent to me by others due to their reluctance to take meals. So far I’ve got a solid track record of getting them eating in the end. I do have one little girl this year still giving me a hard time. Took a first feeding and hasn’t eaten since, but hopefully she decides food is worth it soon enough. It’s kind of amazing how long some snakes can go without food and still hold body condition. They’re a lot more resilient sometimes than we give them credit for. I hope your little guy takes his next meal happily, and digests with no issues.

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Thank you, that’s a respectable endeavor, I’ve been so nervous about him regurgitating or refusing, it’s been eating at me that this happened. Congratulations on your success rate, I think I’ll be sticking to easier babies if I get any more corns in the future. Thank you again for the advice, I was horrified that something when catastrophically wrong with my care that put everyone at risk, and I’ll definitely be making sure to feed him smaller meals so he doesn’t regurgitate in the future.

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Just remember, regurges and refusals happen, every keeper deals with them at some point, and they aren’t the end of the world. Sometimes you have a definitive cause, other times it’s just a random occurance or a snake deciding to be a pain in the behind for no reason other than it being a day ending in “y”. You’ve got this! Your boy will be back to gobbling up mice and ready to try sizing up again in no time.

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Admittedly I did not read all of the replies, so forgive me if this was already covered. After a regurge you’ll want to wait a full two weeks before trying to feed again. Snake stomach acid is very powerful and damages the esophagus on the way up. You want to allow plenty of time for full healing before feeding again. The general consensus is two weeks. Thank God that’s not the rule for when humans puke.

As others have said, calm down, this is not the end of the world. It’s common enough and the usual outcome is total recovery with no signs it ever happened. As someone already posted, it’s a tiny bump in the road. All this vet visit and testing for crypto nonsense is unwarranted, for one regurge, in my opinion. But keep up the quarantine until you are sure there is no real issue. A healthy quarantine should be done for any new acquisition.

And as you know by now, we don’t “tear people to shreds” here.

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Yes, this most importantly. Step back and breathe, your snakey is ok :slight_smile:

I only did a quick readover so I may have missed if any of this has already been said.

Seeing the picture you posted of your Cornsnake’s body, he doesn’t look bad at all. He has healthy clear scales, his body looks to be a good size, his skin isn’t wrinkling or folding indicating dangerous weight loss or dehydration- a few grams loss or gain between meals is perfectly normal for any snake.

I actually don’t reccomend going through all of the enclosure changes you said you’d plan on doing, as it may significantly further any stress on the snake and cause possibly another regurge or refusal to eat alltogether. Just check up on him regularly, give him some time (around 2 weeks) before his next meal with Nutribac and see how he handles it. I personally do not think your snake has Crypto, but its not going to harm anything if you feel testing is necessary.

I’ve only ever had very few regurges happen with my snakes- mostly teeny little new hatched Kingsnakes that got too large of a pinky mouse. It happens sometimes to all of us snake keepers.

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I agree with what’s been said. I noticed you said you’re using overhead heating - is it off at night? A big drop in temps overnight, especially as we head into cooler weather, could be the cause.

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I was considering getting my partner a hognose around the time it came out a major Hoggie seller was selling crypo positive hatchlings, so it’s been something I’ve worried about and tried to look out for the signs. The previous year I’d gone to a show and held one of her snakes before handing a BP maybe an hour later. While I sanitized immediately after handling, I still worry that if I handled a crypto positive animal some of the eggs might not have rinsed off and I might have infected the BP. Everyone is staying in quarantine for at least 3 months, with different feeding days and tools to avoid any possible cross contamination. I am going to still call the pet store to make sure it wasn’t a feeder issue, but so far I’m counting it as a fluke that popped up close together.

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Thank you, thats my game plan going forward. Sadly he loves to burrow so I only really see him 3-4 times a week when he’s in his hide or out climbing, so I’m just keeping an eye on his tank and hoping he’ll surface soon.

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Good advice so far. To me it sounds like a feeder issue. Pet store feeders can be hit or miss at best; one reason you will see even the most casual keeper start their own small colony of feeder mice at times. NutriBac is always a plus to have on deck for a regurge, especially hatchlings amd young snakes.

They (regurges) happen. You got this :slightly_smiling_face::snake:

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I ended up having an awkward call with the manager, and they apparently haven’t had any issues with their mice, and they feed them to the store snakes and haven’t had any issues. I believe them since this is one of the few pet store that I’ve seen that actually has knowledgeable staff and pets kept in good sized tanks. Seriously they keep their betta fish in 5gal each instead of those horrible cups. I’m going to try their mice again next week (when Schnitzel gets her first pinky after the regurge), but keep an eye out for any signs of them going bad.

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I have the uvb bulb turn off at sunset, and a ceramic emitter that’s on from sunset to sunrise. The lowest his tank gets is 70 degrees. My hatchling Schnitzel who’s on utc for the next week then moving into a 20gal with the same set up for heating as Eros. I don’t have any worries about a heat drop, I actually keep my house at 70-75 degrees until I go to sleep at about 11-12 since I get cold really easily.

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Quick update on Madoka (my yearling who didn’t regurgitate and was fed 3 days ago, but I’ve been worried might) passed a healthy bowel movement so I think she’s in the clear) She is in shed so I don’t want to take her out to photograph. This is a photo from about a week ago and I want to check that she isn’t overweight since I was worried Eros was underweight when he doesn’t seem to be (thankfully!)

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Update in case anyone was invested: I found the cause, the f-ing mice were bad. I went today to get madoka a feeder and after I heated it up brown goop came out (not poop, it was from the stomach) and stunk of decay. I’m going to have to make the 30 min bus ride tomorrow to the next town over to get more feeders. I’m pretty disapointed since they’re one of the few shops I’ve seen with good husbandry, but I can’t risk my babies health. I’m already heated since walking home a car sped up to make a light and got close to hitting me so I’m trying to cool down before calling them. I’m frustrated I didn’t notice, but I was congested the last 2 weeks from a cold (and am still dealing with sinus issues) so my sense of smell was shot and I didn’t notice earlier.

Poor Madoka was already in feeding mode since I put her into her feeding tank (she has a major food drive and is confident so I feed her out of tank so she doesn’t try to eat me whenever I stick my hand in her tank. She actually got me last week when I didn’t realize she was still in feeding mode. Plus it allows me to make sure she doesn’t eat substrate and gets it fully down)

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