You can easily buy frozen mice from a large number of online suppliers. Feeding frozen/thawed mice is safer for the snake and kinder to the mice. And don't worry too much about your snake escaping. His/her coloration is normal and the species is native to the area. If it was one of the amelanistic (albino) ones it would have a harder time out there. Don't be surprised to find the snake is still in the house, they are very good at hiding.

Mice are basically omnivores. The Suebee rat diet works well for mice. In a pinch? A handful of cereal, a handful of dog food, and some cut up fruit and veggies (no citrus, please!) works just fine. If your goats eat grain, they can have a bit of that too- my mice get a tablespoon or so of sweet feed every few weeks as a treat.

I second mice on ice, though- not only is it dangerous for snakes to eat live, it's really very unkind to the mice, which are darling little animals on their own, and quite fufn to watch. Most mice love wheels.

*do* patch that hole now- mice are great esape artists!

I think you'll need your "headgear" (that's what the vets I worked for called it so I don't know its proper name) and a scalpel from an eye surgeon. :) Your predicament made me smile. Thank you for that.

P.S. I'll admit that I absolutely could not feed anything live mice (in fact, my sister rescued a rat from being a snake's dinner from the evil petstore she worked at), but don't snakes eat live rodents and such in the wild?

P.S.S. Any advice on how NOT to become a dog hypochondriac? After losing my Daisy to IMHA a week and a half ago (she wasn't even 3!), I'm terrified to bring home another dog. The vet I rent from saw her with her own eyes the night before she became ill and she is as stunned as I am.

Don't feel too guilty or worry too much about an escaped or released corn snake-they're native to Florida. I have a related male red rat snake. I took him about ten years ago, also from someone who was finding it difficult to take care of this snake. To my surprised, he's still alive- I never thought he'd live this long. He's now about four feet long! He's learned that when I tap on the glass, he's going to be fed. Unfortunately, he'll only eat live rats, but after 30 some years in research I'm not that squeamish about feeding him live rats. I just make sure the rat doesan't last long and the snake gets to it - usually within 10-15 seconds. The only time of year feeding him is a problem is now - spring - mating season. Sometimes he won't eat for 4-6 weeks.
One of the fun aspects of owning a snake is going to the snake store to get the rats. I get to interact with part of the culture I don't normally interact with. Though I don't share this culture's fascination with boas and pythons. These snakes released are a problem, not natives like corn and rat snakes.

Heather

As far as altering goes, most people I know don't bother- it's very hard to find vets who will do it (and hey, if you will? Let me know so I can add your clinic to my list to refer folks too). But you can't keep unaltered boys together (at least here in the US- in the UK and Europe, the pet population of mice seems to have a different temperament and people can successfully keep males together. Two girls are fine together, though. [this is my #1 goal in my breeding program at the moment, and everything else except longevity is taking a back seat to it (which means I'm ending up with WEIRD colors)]. So some people get the boys neutered so they can go in with a group of girls- it does NOT appear (totally ancedotally) to reduce their territoriality with each other, though. In rats, we (pet owners/fanciers) have definitely been appreciating the benefits of spaying, which is starting to become fairly common (it's still far from routine- and pet mice are even more tumor prone, so it'd probably be great- I don't know anyone who has had it done on anything but an emergency basis.

A sideline on the live feeding bit? Most of our snakes are wild-caught relocations, and wouldn't go near a frozen or long-dead mouse. However, live feeding is illegal here. What we've found that works for almost all of them is to kill the mouse humanely right before a feed, so that it is still warm and umm... twitchy. Most wild snakes will take that immediately, and that way there is no prolonged stress for the mouse and no danger to the snake either.