corn snake experiences/ inexperience

[clifton]

I currently have a corn snake about one year old, purchased last spring. I'm a very experienced turtle keeper, 57 yrs old, had turtles all my life except for about 5 years. I have 7: cooters, an alligator snapper, a chicken turtle and a slider I inherited 20 years ago. One of my cooters is the same age as me. in 1975 I found a beautiful corn snake in a field in Tulsa. Took it indoors and placed it in a 5 gallon bucket with a screen top. Had a few too many beers and " fell asleep" while handling it. It was loose in my house about 2-3 weeks and then it found its way outside, as evidenced by the behavior of my cat (avoided certain areas of my house for quite a time), then the cat finally relaxed. Unfortunately, I told my kid about this (minus the beer detail) when he was about 5, and he was horrified over the prospect of a corn snake in the house. Fast forward, my son is grown and I have this beautiful common corn snake now. It's about a year old, 22 inches long, and is semi picky about food. Rarely takes frozen mice (fortunately my turtles bat cleanup with rejected frozen mice), preferring a live pinkie or two every 7-10 days. Seems to like sniffing their butts before taking them. Rarely constricts the mouse, but just bites onto one end at random and then eats it. Is this unusual? Seems not to like fuzzies yet, preferring to eat one pinkie somewhat hesitatingly, then chows down voraciously on a second one. Tonight it was searching around the food bowl, looking like it would take a third one if it was offered?!? Anyone have similar experience with corns? The animal is healthy and hearty, but I can't figure why it prefers to eat this way.

 

[Sylvias]

Corns are strange, they all have different personalities like any other snake and some, especially those from generations of captive breeding do not tend to constrict anymore for whatever reason.... However if it continues with this you will definitely want to get it on frozen. It should be able to take fuzzies but it may be intimidated by them since it isn't constricting anything heh
you can try feeding it one live pink and them immediately after when it's looking for more feed it a well thawed and warm frozen pink. there a million methods for switching to frozen thawed but corns are not usually to hard to switch over

 

[chloe]

i only have 2 corns that actually strike and constrict...and they are on defrost, well all of mine r.
the others do they same as yours lol, just really gently taking the head in and off they go. lovely to watch them eat.
occasionally buttsniffing takes place in any of mine that havnt struck.
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