New Corn Snake Owner

[CornSnakeDad]

We are the proud new owners of a baby albino corn snake. She (I'm pretty sure its a her from what I've been able to ascertain from the books we have) loves to be held and is very mellow. She had a pinkie in her stomach when we bought her and we are going to feed her tonight. I bought some calcisand (a calcium based reptile sand that is safe if ingested) but am reading alot of negative comments about using sand of any sort. I guess I'll be purchasing some aspen chips today. As for the water bowls, is a standard heavy based bowl sufficient? Anything else I should know? We have a twenty gallon long aquarium with a screen top for our snake. Pictures forthcoming.

[HomeBreeder]

1> corns are escape artists. be sure your screen top is secured well at all times.

2> I recommend feeding in a 12 galon storage bin to avoid potential ingestion of substrate, with the advantage that you can close it securely (I lost a snake when I fed in paper pags.)

3> The water bowl should be two things, IMHO: sturdy enough the snake can't tip it, and large enough for the snake to coil up and soak. Some people don't let their corns soak - if you keep the water clean I don't see any problem with it.

Welcome to the club, and start making space for another snake. Nobody can get just one, they are so lovely and gentle.

^Curtis

[Jr Nimeskern]

Just like Homebreeder said you cant have just one... I dont think its fesable... but anyways... my water bowls are dog dishes... with opening at the bottom... I got them for 2 reasons... 1 so they could drink out of the water bowls...2 with the openings at bottom they can use the water bowl as a hide... this is very smart if your trying to save space... its a 2 in 1... you should feed your snake about 1 time a week...(but with my yearling snakes I powerfeed them which means I feed them 1 pinky every monday and friday this will get your snake to grow faster... ALOT faster but ppl dont exactly like powerfeeding so well keep it on the hush hush...:rolleyes:)... when I first started out I was using the cali sand... the colors were great they would match my snakes perfectly... I never had any problems with it... but like you I started to read on this forum that the sand is bad for your snake... it drys out the air and drys out the snakes outer skin... this could cause some problems with shedding...

What Kind of albino is it? amel, anery a, ??? just wondering and congrats on getting your new corn...

[kenalotia]

JR, I wouldn't call 2 pinkies a week for a yearling corn power feeding! Perhaps you can move them up to the next size? How big are they?

[Jr Nimeskern]

LOL well I was actually meaning for him 2 pinkys would be powerfeeding... what I ment was that I feed them 2 times a week whatever the size of food that they are eating... like hoppers fuzzys or mice... all the way up till there one year... then I go to 1 food item a week...

[CornSnakeDad]

Thanks for the wonderful words of encouragement. Actually I've already been eyeballing snakes at the reptile shop, the pythons are really interesting and seem docile as well. I'm not sure what type of albino she is...I'll post a photo of her later and you all can tell us about her.

Looking forward to learning all about these wonderful creatures with my son!:D

[apollo's mom]

grats on the new family member. as for ingesting the sand, i bought a rubbermaid sweaterbox to feed my baby in. It keeps him from having any chance at ingesting his bedding and its really easy to clean! good luck with your new baby :)

[SilverTongue]

If the snake is a reddish orange color it is mostlikely that it is a amel, if it is black and white with a mit of yellow (perhaps) then it is an anery a, if it (i hope I am correct) is kinda smoky or charcoal coloring maybe even a lil bit of purple then it is an anery b. Hope that helps. I am new to this myself.

Please correct me if I am wrong.I am still learning :)

[pdrau]

If no one else has said it, buy the Corn Snake Manual from Corn-Utopia.com. It is the best resource out there for information on caring for corn snakes. Click on my HAPPY CORN link in this post for a neat little acronym about corn snake care.

Peter

[SilverTongue]

Pretty neat!

[CornSnakeDad]

Well we fed her last night. We removed her from the tank with a pair of wooden chopsticks and placed her in a semi clear plastic storage container by rubbermaid as suggested (I'm going to get one of those big sweater storage boxes though. We held the pinkie with the chopsticks and she reached out and struck at it with her teeth and then held on to it for a few minutes. Aferward she made what appeared to be a series of short closed mouth strikes ( I think to try to provoke the prey to move it was still alive). Then she went about her business of eating it head first. It only took her about five minutes or so to get it in her gullet. I used the chopsticks and a paper plate to get her back into her aquarium. We placed an upside down empty butter tub with a hole cut in the side on the edge of the warm side of her tank and she has been curled up in it since. We haven't disturbed her at all today. How long should we leave her alone before trying to handle her?

[SilverTongue]

i think 48 hours would be good

[B-J@y]

We removed her from the tank with a pair of wooden chopsticks and placed her in a semi clear plastic storage container by rubbermaid

Dit you take the corn out with chopsticks? you can just take her out by hand! i think this would be preferd. With the chopstick you can easely hurt the litle girl!

[CornSnakeDad]

I let her crawl up onto the chop sticks. I read in the corn snake manual as well as some on line documentation that you don't want to associate feeding with you hands in any way. So they suggested a snake hook when you take the snake out of their usual cage and place them in the feeding cage, as well as not putting you hand in their feeding cage to return them to their normal cage. Is this being overly cautious? Also, are sycamore tree branches acceptable for putting into their cages or should I just go spend the 20 bucks and get a nice piece of drift wood.

One more thing. I bought one of those self filling water bowls, with the green plastic base and the semi clear plastic water holder that sits inverted on the base. Don't waste your money the water reservoir mouth is too wide for there to be any suction and hold the water out of the bowl. I'm going to buy a plain solid bowl big enough for her to lay in if she wants as an adult.

She already defecated, and appears to have grown a few inches. I've got to photo her, she has the most beautiful markings on her.
She was out exploring the aquarium this morning and didnt pull back when I put my hand in the cage to pick her up. She rested on my wrist for a while seemingly content to just sit and watch.
I only wish I had discovered the joys of owning a hep before.

[Katie]

Snakes are georgous and interesting and too often people bring them home with no idea how to care for them. I'm always glad to see people doing their research and following up with misc. questions afterwards (which is how I learned :) ). So congrats on that! Now, as for the chopsticks. I don't use them but I know people that do and they do so for good reason. I've never had reason to use them and until I do I will probably not switch but if that day ever comes you'd better believe I'd rather use a hook than get bitten even if it doesn't hurt a whole lot! There are different schools of thought on this issue and I don't think anyone is really right or wrong. Go with whatever feels best. I would say that probably if I had small childern I would do this as well.

The water bowl idea with the thing on top is great for dogs and cats that drink alot during a day. But snakes tend to soak in their water (and you may not even know this because they probably do it at night when you're sleeping! :) ) and some tend to like to poop in their water. For this reason, the water bowl needs to be cleaned and disinfected every other day so the reservoir on top probably wouldn't be used anyway. Snakes don't drink a whole lot in 2 days. But if it matters, I bought one of those for my dog and it didn't work so hot either. Lol.

As for the branch, I don't know a whole lot about sycamore. I would think that as long as it wasn't a really sappy tree (like pine) or didn't have a really strong smell (like cedar) it would be ok. You may want to put it in the oven on 320 for 10 or 20 minutes to kill any bugs or parasites and maybe spray it down with a bit of bleach and rinse it off really well and then let it dry out good for a few days.

[Kel]

Welcome to Corns !

I don't worry about picking mine up unless they're shedding when they get more nervous (they can't see, so you just have to move very gently and slowly). I don't feed them inside their vivs, so they never interpret my hand in their viv as a feeding opportunity.

Top tip is to make sure you rinse your hands between handling food and handling the snake, then there's no confusion for the more inexperienced Corn Snake. Don't worry - your snake will soon have you trained !

Cheers
Kel

[jim]

n/p