Are snakes happy living like this???

My lavender corn will go into an almost catatonic like state when she goes blue. You can mess around with the stuff in her viv, even take her hide off of her and she'll lay completely motionless as though she were dead. Touch her and she barely moves. Scared my wife half to death the first couple times. Couple days later and she's out and about doing her snakey thing.

As for the thermostat you've gotten some great advice, I have 2 tub racks and used rather expensive stats on those but also have a smaller one that I just built so my son can have his snake in his room. I put a dimmer switch on it and took almost a week to make sure everything stayed consistant and was very impressed with the results. Its very steady with a +/- of less than 2 degrees over the course of that week. Cheap to boot at only 10 bucks. Although it may not work so well with a tank setup and does require basic wiring knowledge to hook up.

Are the tubs secure? We just adopted our 5 yr old corn, and the previous family suggested putting her in her feeding container INSIDE her terrarium for the drive. Within 5 minutes, she'd managed to pop the corner off the lid of the feeding container, and was trying her hardest to find her way out of the terrarium (the tank clamps held-which is good, because I can't imagine a snake loose in a mini-van would be a good situation!).

Our corn came with a 20 gal aquarium,and my husband and I were considering trying to buy a larger one at Repticon this coming weekend, because it really doesn't seem like she has enough room in there (she's at least 3 1/2 feet long, maybe longer since she's never NOT coiled/twisted around in some way so it's hard to estimate), and to maybe give her more height for climbing. Is that a mistake?

D (the mom)

i kept me corn in a tub with newspaper for a year hiding it from the RA's in my dorm.. so it was opaque.. i don't know if he liked it.. i do think i like to keep me snake in a place where he can at least see out..

@Alli -- The tubs need to be the clamping type to be really secure, the feeding tub might have had loose sides. My little guy can't get out of the one I got for him, he's tried. Its has the latching clamps on the short sides.

Originally Posted by SteveP

My lavender corn will go into an almost catatonic like state when she goes blue. You can mess around with the stuff in her viv, even take her hide off of her and she'll lay completely motionless as though she were dead. Touch her and she barely moves. Scared my wife half to death the first couple times. Couple days later and she's out and about doing her snakey thing.

As for the thermostat you've gotten some great advice, I have 2 tub racks and used rather expensive stats on those but also have a smaller one that I just built so my son can have his snake in his room. I put a dimmer switch on it and took almost a week to make sure everything stayed consistant and was very impressed with the results. Its very steady with a +/- of less than 2 degrees over the course of that week. Cheap to boot at only 10 bucks. Although it may not work so well with a tank setup and does require basic wiring knowledge to hook up.

This is exactly what i do.. it stays pretty consistent.. as the seasons change, i do end up adjusting the dimmer switch though. and i have a digital thermometer with the probe taped to the bottom of the hide so i get the temperature reading as it is inside the warm hide.

and your right.. DON't try this without some basic safety knowledge unless you want to risk burning your house down!

Don't forget everyone; none of your snakes "like" anything.

Corn snakes hae been captive bred for so long now so many different ways that they thrive in conditions that many new keepers and old would never consider doing today, with all the advances and info on the husbandry aspect. Rubbermaid container under a bed in a college dorm room, no problem for a corn snake. Just not recommended

Originally Posted by chris68

Rubbermaid container under a bed in a college dorm room, no problem for a corn snake. Just not recommended

........ pft..

No one ever would keep a snake under their beds in their dorm rooms.

Especially not me.


*cough*