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New Owners

B

Bullet

New member
Hi I am new to this site and a new corn snake owner( co owner).
I just got my 8 yr. old girl a corn for Christmas. I just want to know if we are doing anything wrong. His name is Bullet and he is now in a 15 g tank with a heat pad under the tank and a heat lamp on top of the screen at the same end. Both are on timers when the light goes off the heatpad comes on. The temp is about 80 when the light is on and about 65 - 70 at night . He spends alot or almost all of his time in the cool end in a little log hide box but i do have one in the hot end. Will corns go to the heat when they need it? I put a log or climbing stick on an angle up towards the light so he can get hotter if needed. There is also a water bowl in the tank but I haven't seen him use it yet since he spends most of his time hidden. With this being a new pet we take him out a couple of times a day and handle him, he don't seem to mind. I have wood chips that I got at the pet store but they seem to be quite dry now that the lamp has gotten at them for a few days, should they be misted to keep damp? The snake is only about 15 inches long and i plan on feeding him ever 10 days to slow growth, I was told that it would be ok. And i plan on taking him out and putting him in a different container to do the feedings and later putting him back in his house to digest. I did feed him onece since he came home but he was still in a small container cause I was hiding him until Christmas. If you can see any problems with this type of setup please let me know. I did do alot of reading before buying this snake but it is always good to hear from people who have cared for them for a while.
 
Seems okay, make sure you have a thermostat on the light and mat as both can get very hot and the light should have a guard as corns like climbing well some do and will wrap round it and maybe have more difficulty getting down than up and sustain burns (hence why hot rocks are bad reptiles dont know the damage they're doing to themselves) errmm with feeding, i feed my hatchling corns 1pink every 4days until there's no visible lump and i then increase to 2pinks every 4days and continue this cycle until 4pinks go without a lump and then introduce fuzzys (which neither of my corns like -joy joy-) one every 5days start with small ones and build up size in the same routine as pinks.

I'm no expert but feel free to e-mail me with anything I have 2corns and have had them since june but have read on them since i was about 8 and i'm 15 now so yup;) my e-mail is [email protected] but if you wanna stick with the forum Bmm and elrojo are well up in their corn know-how

Rachel
 
You want to keep the humidity up when the snake is going through a shed, but otherwise keeping the substrate damp is just asking for trouble. It can harber bacteria and can lead to scale rot.

Make sure you are measuring the temperature at ground level, where the snake is. It sounds as if the tank is actually hotter than you think it is.

Feeding every 10 days is okay. Most people I know feed every 4-7 days when the snake is young, but there is nothing saying you have to feed it that often. I'm not telling you to increase the amount of time in between feedings, but a corn snake that eats only once a month will still be okay.

If you haven't already got it, the Corn Snake Manual by Kathy Love is a really great book and it will tell you a lot.
 
Yes i do have that book and i did measure the temp. at ground level it seems ok 75 - 80 in hot end and 70 - 75 in cool end. Fed him today in a container outside its tank. It took only about 2 min for the snake to eat that pinkie up. Once he had it in I put the container in the tank and let him out. He got out and went right under the woodchips. I thought that he would climb the log to get closer to the heat. Is this normal?? I also seen him get a drink out of the waterbowl today after we had him out for a bit before his feeding. How do i put a picture of my snake next to his name over to the left??
 
Corns, younger ones in particular, are fairly secretive and spend a lot of time hiding away. It's not at all unusual for a new snake to not come out while you're around. After a while the snake settles in and will start to come out of hiding for longer periods of time. Also, don't think that closer to the light is neccessarily better. Under the bark he's probably warm enough -and- feeling secure.

You probably won't have to do anything special for the humidity during shedding time - usually room humidity is going to be enough.

I am curious why you want to slow it's growth. When the neighborhood kids want to hold a snake, I actually prefer to get a -larger- corn, cause they're not as easy to accidentally injure or lose as a hatchling.
 
he came out from under the wood chips last night once the light went out and went inside his hide box on the warm side of the tank where the heat pad is. This morning he is just outside his hide box above the heatpad sitting there. He seems fine.
 
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