Calling All Lurkers
 

The forum is really dragging lately, very few posts and very little in the way of discussion. Rich monitors the activity, and if the forum no longer meets the needs of the corn snake community, it will disappear. Tell us what is happening with your corns, post pictures, tell us how you are developing the morphs you like, tell us how you maintain the health of your corns, tell us the best and worse things you encountered with your corns. Don't assume your topic won't be of interest to other members or guests. You may encourage others to chime in with their experiences too.

I'm in limbo right now, until I start pairing. I've been working on getting property set up to build a house on. I'm hoping to move over this spring or summer, and once I'm settled, I can ramp up my projects.

Not much going on here. Valentine is growing like a weed. She is on hoppers now. I need to weigh her to see how much she weighs now. She is currently snuggled into her moss box for shed but I'll grab some photos of her once she is out. She is a very sweet tempered snake. Handles great and eats like a champ.

My corn collection often seems to grow despite my sworn goal to reduce their numbers. I was lucky this year when I found a buyer for all my hatchlings, plus 5 proven adults. Once in a while I blunder into a really good deal that I can't pass up. I saw an ad for a sub-adult hypo lavender het caramel and bloodred male, and an adult amaretto het bloodred, and the guy threw in a sub-adult stripe ultramel het lavender female. I bred the male to the amaretto female and kept 5 of their 7 hatchlings. So my lavender project is off and running.

There are so many informative and interesting discussions that have been posted here over the years, would be a shame to see it all disappear. Maybe we can "Make Cornsnakes.com Great Again" :grin01: My corn snake projects are few, but I'm excited for them none the less. I'm currently raising up my hold back Abbott line Okeetee to breed to a pretty "Extreme" Reverse Okeetee. The goal is to just produce some nice looking "Classic" normals that should rival the prettiest of Okeetees. While the ERO is most likely to have an Okeetee background, I'll still call the kids "Classics". I love "Snow" morph corns, and my Snow Buf project kicks off next season. The parents are F1 siblings, an "Orange" (Amel Buf) het Dilute, Motley and Anery A and an "Orange" Tessera with the same het genes. While Buf Snow's are the main goal, there should be a neat mix of Amels in this clutch :dancer:

Hi All!

I would agree, some robust discussion is in order. I have been doing some really productive research on the new morphs since I last bred Corns and Kings. Also, I've learned that snakes don't sell as well in Washington State as they did in Utah, bummer as I bought some groups and didn't need all the snakes in the group, despite pricing well. So, some lessons learned.

-Tonya

I can't wait to start my first year of breeding projects. I have 2 planned clutches for this coming year and 7 planned for the following. I just pulled one pair from brumation and put another pair down into it.

Wow! That's awesome-.. Do you have a website or list of what your potential hatchlings are?

-Tonya

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It just takes the right buyer that sees your ad. Sometimes I pass up a nice corn
because my extra cash went for a rodent order. I've run ads locally with no response for months, and then two people email me at the same time wanting the snakes. A good time to sell is when the federal income tax returns are mailed out.

No website but my wife and I do have a FB page for reptiles and rodents. https://www.facebook.com/silenthillreptiles/

The first pairing is an amel het charcoal ph anery X amel with unknown hets. This clutch is mostly to just gain some experience and test the female for any hets.

The second clutch I'm hoping will be a caramel, sunkissed, bloodred, Miami ph amel, cinder X extreme okeetee. I'm hoping for a nice looking Miami okeetee to hold back.

I staggered the two clutches so I wouldn't get overwhelmed my first year.

I would have been posting more if this had not been absolutely the worst year for me so far. I haven't taken any new photos since summer. My plans for next year are so vague and up in the air...I will be pairing the phet Golden females to their het sire, but otherwise I don't know that I can house very many hatchlings next year. :/

OMG, I hope 2019 is going to be a better year for you. I wondered why we haven't heard much from you or Dolly's Mom lately. Even on my worst days, health concerns, death in the family, unexpected bills, female corns slugging out, clutch going bad, etc, I can sit in my snake room and be comforted handling the corns.

I would definitely love to have more discussions here!

I don't have much to contribute to talk of breeding since I've never bred snakes and don't plan on doing anytime soon. I only have my one pet corn now, but have kept plenty of snakes in the past so I don't have a whole lot of beginner care questions either. I think there are still plenty of slightly less conventional conversation topics countering on keeping snakes/corns that could be engaging though.

At the moment I'm in grad school for nonfiction writing and I've been thinking about working on a piece about my thoughts and history of keeping snakes and other reptiles. My undergrad degree is in wildlife biology and my interest in snakes and other reptiles was a huge inspiration for my studies in the field of wildlife bio. I recently read an article written by a favorite short fiction author, Wendy Brenner, which is a profile on Dean Ripa of North Carolina who was famed for keeping a number of venomous snakes. Wondering if anyone might have known him personally? If you'd like to check out the article it's called "Love and Death in the Cape Fear Serpentarium" and can be read online at the Oxford American.

Anyone else have personal anecdotes about their relationships with snakes and other reptiles that go beyond the simple realities of keeping, feeding, breeding, and selling? Has an interest in snakes been a starting point for anyone else in developing other interests or going after certain pursuits in life? Maybe I just seem like a crazy person? :crazy02: Let me know!:wavey:I really love this forum

I was away from the forums for a good long while, since my first corn snake, Lily, managed to escape a little over a year ago. I was pretty bummed about it, and stuck with my ball python for a good long while.

I eventually got bit by the corn snake bug again, and got a baby Salmon Snow corn last month. She is tiny and very pink.

Then today, I bought a snake in need of rehoming from Craigslist. He's an adult..something. I'm trying to see if someone can ID him, cause my best guess is probably some sort of Anery (I posted a thread in the morph forum). He's a good noodle, and I was sad to find out his previous owners were smokers. Poor guy. I had to toss most of the stuff he came with cause it smelled of cigarette smoke (of which I am allergic to), and his tank was old and busted up. Thankfully I had an extra 20g tank lying around. So far I haven't heard any signs of respiratory distress, but I'll be keeping an eye on him. His saving grace may have been that he apparently spent most of his time buried in substrate, because he had no hides (was told he didn't use them), and that may have filtered out some of the nastiness. He has hides now, and is kind of confused about it, lol. Took him a while to work up the nerve to poke his head inside, but now he's slithering in and out of them. I'm guessing he'll settle down more once he gets used to his new tank. It's a pretty drastic change for him, considering the hides and the lack of smoke smell. I'll go through some of my extra stuff too and see what else I can find for him to play with. I know I have some more reptile hammocks hiding around here somewhere.

I love the Salmon Snows too. I almost bought a couple this year, but my collection is getting out of hand again, according to my wife anyway. I'm so glad you managed to get the adult corn and provide the proper home. I cringe when I find out how some of the poor snakes were maintained, if you can call it that.

Exactly the reason I am hoping to avoid producing any of the very cheap morphs in the future. Not to say a $500 snake can't also wind up in substandard care, but it's so much more likely to happen with a $20 normal. :/

Twolunger, is there any particular focus for your collection or a little bit of everything.

Sadly with people not producing the cheaper morphs or wholesaling them it's making some of those a little harder to find. Amels are easy to find every where since there are so many different lines but finding a good quality anery is getting pretty hard. Almost everything that's not an amel is 2-3 morphs.

[quote=67temp;1735638]Twolunger, is there any particular focus for your collection or a little bit of everything.

I took over some of my son's corns when he sold all his snakes. He was breeding a lot of different morphs for his wholesale customers, but mainly tesseras and combinations of anery's. I'm gradually replacing all the breeders with colors I like, which means I let at least 10 proven breeders go. I'm concentrating on 3 things I like, lavender morphs, candy canes, and anything pink.

Yeah, it is sad to see how people keep snakes sometimes. At least my new boy is getting the care he deserves now. I mean, for what it's worth, they did seem to take good care of him, outside of smoking around him and keeping him is a tank of questionable quality. He's a good weight, and is an absolute puppydog to handle. Amazing temperament. I'm just hoping there won't be any major RI issues popping up down the line.

I was gonna give him more time to acclimate before his first feed with me, but he seems to want none of it, lol. I saw him staring me down as he watched me feed the other snakes the night after I brought him home like 'Food? Where's my food?!', glass surfing, tongue-flicking, and the like. I had been told it was his feeding night the night I got him, but I didn't dare feed him then. Well, my ball python decided she didn't want her second weanling rat, it was small enough for him, and I hated to waste it, so I figured it probably couldn't hurt to offer it to him. He was more than happy to eat, and has spent the last few days digesting without issue.

Today I checked in on him to change his water, the first time I've opened the tank since feeding him. He decided to crawl out of the tank and explore his surroundings and slither around on me a bit. He tail-rattled when I put him back in his enclosure though. Part of me wonders if he's still not too thrilled with his new one yet, with those new smells, new hide things, and paper towel substrate (just til I know he's pooping okay, then he'll get his beloved aspen back). I'm still trying not to bug him too much though, since I know that he must still be a little stressed about some of the new things, but so far I've just been doing my best to read his behavior to let him deal with things on his terms. I know "food" is definitely a-ok with him, at least :laugh:

Aspen !! I hate the stuff !
Sorry it's one of my 'pet hates' so to speak ..


It's banned in our house as the wife hates how it gets all over the carpets and house ..

It's useless controlling humidity and looks so unnatural !!
I get that it's easily sourced and cheap ... if even 'drains' the colour out of your snakes 'visually'.


I use Orchid bark which is the polar opposite for all the above factors.

Check out these two photos to show the difference..

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...ddc3084e5d.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...04c7b811cb.jpg


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Well, I'm just using aspen cause I know he'll like burrowing in it, and it's a good substrate for that. I never gave much thought into contrasting my substrate with my snakes before though. Guess that would explain why my ball python looks particularly striking in her enclosure. Bright yellow against dark browns, greys, and greens. I use eco earth with her to help humidity though. My corns don't need it, so I don't use it with them.

Although, I think my Anery corn's darker colors look pretty good with aspen's color. He'd just blend in on anything dark, lol. Might not be a bad idea to use a darker substrate for my coral snow hatchling though. I'd be able to find her easier.

I do agree though, aspen does have a habit of getting everywhere. Eco earth can too. It is what it is. :shrugs:

Beech chippings for darker snakes ;). They're tiny chips ..

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...14fd5f8a8.jpeg


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Ta da ... there she is :)


https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...2856d6d54b.jpg



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So, I can't seem to find anywhere that'll sell beech chips in the US, so that option's out. Orchid bark is expensive for the amount you get. I'll just stick with aspen. The snakes like it, I can tolerate it, so it's all good.

Orchid bark is cheap on eBay if you get a big bag ..

It can also be cleaned and re-used if you are prepared to spend the time and energy..


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Try eBay or Amazon for Beech chippings


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I've been involved with snake keeping for more decades than I care to say. After a break due to life circumstances, I'm getting more involved again, and I registered here just today because the website where I posted 20 years ago seems to have really gone downhill, to say the least.

I hope that doesn't happen here!

Social media is the "thing" these days...Where there was a just a couple different corn snake forums when this one was jumping now there are dozens of FB pages just dedicated to corn snakes, let alone boas, ball pythons, retics etc. I'm trying to check in more, I just don't have much going on with corn snakes.

And welcome back GW :grin01:

Thanks for the welcome and the explanation, Chris!

I'm still a hold-out and don't have a FB page.

Welcome. Glad to have you aboard. Tell us what you are raising/keeping now. I was on the Fauna forum years ago when I raised reptiles for my son's pet shop.
Many of the corn snake breeders have given up. I search through the old posts and see names I almost forgot about until now.

I don't have, or want, a FB page. Once in a while someone will tell me to look at their page on FB and there is so much clutter that I can't even find what they want me to see. I don't have the patience to wade through that crap. Just send me a picture of what you want me to see.

Thanks, Twolunger.

In response to your post, I'm sorry to say that due to divorce, I lost my entire snake collection (long story). Since then, I've busied myself with my genetics website and smart phone apps that have similar calculation abilities of up to six genetic traits at the same time.

I'm also working on turning a snake keeping book that I wrote and published 22 years ago into an eBook. I'm not sure if there will be a market for it, but I'm going to see where it takes me.

As you can probably tell, I have very mixed emotions about FB, and I agree with your comments. I'm struggling with the fact that FB seems to be one of the best ways to promote online ventures such as mine.

I'm curious about your comment that "Many of the corn snakes breeders have given up." Why is that? I'm assuming it's not because of lack of breeding success, so my guess is that it has become a hard way to make money. Please let me know so that I don't over-indulge my life-long passion for snakes and go down the wrong road!

I think Rich Z can tell you why excellent corn snake breeders chose to quit. In fact, he mentioned it in a post not too long ago. Hobby breeders can still sell corn snakes and hopefully bring in enough money to pay their rodent costs. If you want to really earn some spending cash you need a large operation with high end morphs, and a higher degree of headaches. Some of the larger breeders raise 6000-7000 corn snakes each year, most of which are sold wholesale to Europe and Asian countries. Thankfully, there are still a few corn breeders selling beautiful morphs to the average Joe like me.

I have a pretty good customer base, and just breed a pair or two of corns every year. There are still hobbyists breeders out here :grin01: This season I'm hoping for "Orange" Tessera's, Snow Bufs, with Dilute and Motley in the mix as well. Will be a headache picking snows from Buf Snows, Oranges from Dilute Oranges.

*looks out from under the lurk rock*

Interesting to see who is still going strong.

It's the same with most forums to be honest .. our RFUK forum is rather quiet .

The only reptile forum that is active and thriving is Ball-Pythons.net .

Don't be fooled by the name its for all reptiles and has evolved since the early days


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Post an invitation on the Ball python forum for everyone to visit us here. ( if you won't be banned ) You would be surprised how many corn snake breeders don't even know our forum exists. I didn't even know it until I happened to be talking to Steve Roylance about some of the morphs I bought from Rich Z many years ago.

I wouldn't advise that. MANY site owners really don't appreciate the "come look at my site" sort of postings. It is considered as an effort to siphon off their traffic to another site. All sites are competing for eyeballs. Some will not even accept paid advertising that attempts to direct traffic to competing sites.

Of course, maybe things have changed dramatically since FaceBorg has nearly taken over the internet.

Anyway, my interpretation of the situation here is quite simple: People just found places they would rather frequent than this site. It happens. So when the "voting with their feet" shows that this site has become a waste of storage space on my server, and it is time for this site to go, it will go.

Sorry, but that is just not true, IMHO. FaunaClassifieds.com is still doing quite well, all things considered.

I hope that never happens. As a newbie I've found this site very helpful. It's nice to actually be able to search the forums and learn new to me information.