Need a good breeders help!!!

[THayes]

Most of the care sheets ive read about breeding corn snakes have been very helpful. But some conterdict each other and i have a few questions.

1. Most say to keep the cage at 55-65 dergrees F. Is this true? I have a colder room in my house that i can use but i dont know the exact temp. What do u guys do to bring down the temp in that room?

2. Most say to remove the eggs and put them in an incubator, which sounds right. But one or two sites emphized NOT TO TOUCH THE EGGS. Well then how do I remove them to an incubator?

3. All sites i have visited give a rather large age range on when corn snakes become sexually active. Are there any signs the snake will give to let me know it is sexually active?

4. This has nothin to do with breeding but i still would like to know. When you guys list your snakes to the left of them you put 1.0 or 0.1. What does this mean?

Thank you for all of your help. Me and my baby corns will greatly appriciate and benifit from it!!!

[Darin Chappell]

Here you go from my "opinion" files -- all this has worked for me:

1. I try to keep my animals at about 50 F while brumating. Any higher than that and, if you run into a warm spell, they could actually have normal metabolism without the benefit of food. How do I achieve this temp? I just don't heat the room in question. It gets plenty cold enough here.

2. It's fine to touch the eggs in order to put them in an incubator. What you don't want to do is (a) try to separate any eggs stuck together, or (b) change the orientation of the eggs [don't turn them over at all].

3. Females are ready to breed when they are about 3' long and in good flesh (not too skinny). Males can breed when they're big enough to be interested in sex and not be scared of the larger female. However, waiting a little longer to breed animals may very well increase fertility rates/successes.

4. The numbers of which you spoke are those which represent the sex of animals being described. 1.2 okeetees means one male and two female okeetees. 0.0.4 normals is four normals of unknown sex. The order of sexes is always male.female.unknown.

Hope this helps a bit. Have fun with them!

[THayes]

Will the male or female snake incubate the eggs naturally in captivity or does this process have to be assisted with an incubator? And what kind of set up do u use to keep the eggs in?instead of purchasing an incubator can i use a light?

[Kat]

No, corns do not incubate the eggs. You need to use an incubator of some sort... you can use whatever you can come up with that keeps the eggs from getting too cold and too warm, without making them too dry or too wet. It's a very good idea to have your incubation setup up and running (and tested) before any eggs are laid to make sure that the environment provided doesn't cook, freeze, dehydrate, or drown the eggs.