Every animal needs to poop regularly to stay healthy, including your pet snake!
But knowing how often they’re supposed to poop and what healthy corn snake poop looks like is a bit tricky.
Rest assured, we’ve got all the answers to your stinky, snake poop-related questions here, even the ones you’re a little embarrassed to ask about!
Corn snakes usually poop about 3 to 5 days after eating a meal. Adult corn snakes should eat once a week, so they should also poop roughly once a week. Babies and juveniles eat slightly more often, so they generally poop slightly more than once a week on average.
Keep reading to learn more about corn snakes’ pooping schedules, how to ensure things go smoothly, and when it’s time to be concerned.
We’ll also go over any questions you probably have about corn snake poop, like what it should look like, how long a corn snake can go without pooping, and more.
Table of Contents
How Often Should Healthy Corn Snakes Poop?
Snakes’ digestive systems are surprisingly efficient, even if they work a bit slower than our own.
When it comes to corn snakes, the frequency of their poops is directly tied to how often you’re feeding them in captivity.
On average, adult corn snakes should eat about once a week, while babies should eat slightly more often at every 3 to 5 days or so.
Generally, corn snakes of all ages tend to poop about 3 to 6 days after eating a meal.
This means if you’re feeding your snake once a week, they should also be pooping at least once a week.
Speaking of feeding, check out our guide to feeding a corn snake.
Do Baby Corn Snakes Poop More Than Adults?
As we touched on above, how often your snake poops mostly has to do with their feeding schedule.
Since baby and juvenile corn snakes should eat slightly more often than adults, this means they should poop a bit more often, too.
For baby corn snakes under 6 months of age, they should be eating every 3 to 4 days.
This means they should be pooping every three to four days as well.
For juvenile corn snakes 6 to 12 months old, they should be eating every 4 to 6 days.
In turn, this means they should be pooping a little more than once a week on average.
Adult corn snakes older than one year should be eating about once a week.
As you would probably imagine by now, this means they should be pooping around once a week also!
How Long After a Meal Do Corn Snakes Poop?
Healthy adult corn snakes typically poop about 3 to 5 days after eating a meal, or around once a week.
However, this varies slightly depending on your snake’s age, level of hydration, and overall digestive health.
Since snakes have a carnivorous diet and eat fairly infrequently in general, they don’t poop as often as, say, most birds or mammals.
Rather than having several small poops every day like us humans, corn snakes will poop only after their entire meal has been fully digested.
This makes their digestive systems surprisingly efficient!
Baby and juvenile corn snakes tend to digest their food a bit faster than adults, so they’ll also poop a bit more often, or roughly 2 to 4 days after eating a meal.
This usually translates to slightly more than once a week on average.
In addition to this, dehydrated, injured, or ill snakes will poop less often.
Providing adequate hydration to your pet as a responsible snake owner is crucial, as, without enough water, they are unable to poop regularly, which often leads to severe impaction if left untreated.
How Do I Know if My Corn Snake is Pooping?
Like most snake species, corn snakes usually don’t take very long to poop, and they don’t make much of a show of it, so, rarely, you’ll be able to observe them in the act.
They also prefer to poop in private when nobody is around.
You’ll usually be able to tell if your corn snake is pooping because they’ll excrete a small amount of uric acid, or pee, first just before pushing out the rest of their waste matter.
The typical uric acid fragment usually looks like a slimy whitish or yellowish lump.
Since they don’t “go” as often as most other animals, corn snake droppings–and their white urates–are usually very large.
Healthy snake poop also tends to be very dark brown, almost black, and thick for this same reason.
Runny poop or otherwise abnormal-looking poop is usually caused by too much water in a snake’s diet or potentially other underlying health issues.
How Can I Help My Corn Snake Poop?
If your corn snake is struggling to poop or hasn’t had a proper bowel movement in more than two weeks or so, it likely needs more water to ease the process along.
Soaking their body in warm water for a few minutes at a time once or twice a week will help stimulate their bowels.
In the meantime, offer them more fresh, clean water in their water dish to encourage them to drink more.
Keep the water dish clean by cleaning it thoroughly at least once a day.
Snakes generally prefer drinking fresh, cold water to warm or room temperature water, so switching it out once or twice a day to keep it cool is a good idea to stimulate better drinking habits and more consistent poops.
If your snake is dealing with chronic constipation and infrequent poops, your feeding schedule or the temperature and humidity conditions are likely to blame.
Make sure the temperature and humidity are within the proper range and use a substrate that maintains the correct humidity level well.
Installing a dual thermometer and hygrometer in your snake’s enclosure will help you keep an eye on these levels more consistently.
Another potential solution is to feed your snake smaller meals.
As a general rule of thumb, your corn snake’s prey should be no wider than twice the diameter of the snake’s body width at the midpoint of its body.
Any larger than this, and you risk constipation and eventual impaction.
If none of these solutions helped move things along after a week or so, it’s probably time to see an experienced reptile veterinarian to rule out any underlying health issues like an illness or nutrient deficiency and get further advice for your constipated snake.
Check out more info in our article on why your corn snake won’t eat.
How Long Can a Corn Snake Go Without Pooping?
Corn snakes shouldn’t go more than two weeks without pooping unless they are brumating.
However, during brumation, it is common for a captive snake to go several weeks without moving, eating, or defecating.
If your corn snake has gone more than two weeks without pooping and they aren’t currently brumating, contact a reptile vet to schedule an appointment for an exam.
In the meantime, consider some of the possible solutions mentioned earlier to remedy the issue at home.
Constipation in snakes is fairly common for several reasons, but thankfully, most of them are easily remedied, like improper humidity, excessively large prey, or incorrect enclosure temperatures.
