New to Corn Snakes.. =)

I've been thinking about getting a corn snake.. and to be honest I don't know much at all about keeping snakes. I keep numerous tarantulas, but that is all at the moment.

I just have a few questions about corn snakes.
I noticed some have different markings/patterns and colours. Are there different types of corn snakes ?
Do all corn snakes share the same scientific name even with different markings ? Or are they different "spieces" ?

and for the annoying newbie questions!

- How big do corn snakes get when fully grown ? how long does it take to reach adult size, and do the size of males and females differ ?
- Is there a preference for a male or female snake other than breeding purposes ? Like are either more docile , etc etc.

Can anyone point me into a direction of good corn snakes sites that may also answer more of the basic corn snake questions ?
I noticed people mentioning a good book on this site, that I will check out.

Thanks so much in advance.
- Jeni

first of all hi and welcome to the forum

No there are no different species of corns. Those are genetic mutations (often first found in the wild) that are bred so that the snake keeps that mutation. I won't give you a genetic course there is a forum for that and i might mislead you. But to get back back to the question : an amelanistic corn (often called albino because it lack melanin) is still a corn snake, an anerilistic (one that lacks all red pigment, sorry for the spelling) is still a cornsnake, now the fun part is when you combine those 2 genes you get a corn with no red and no black, those are called snow corns. So thats where a lot of color comes from, they are wild cought then mixed togheter with plenty of other color that already exist, it's a little more complicated but i'll let you read in the genetic forum if you need more explanation.

As for pattern there are 3 basic pattern (Normal, motley(rounds) and stripe(2 stripe all the lenght of the snake)), 1 that we don't quite understand the genetic (aztec/zig-zag) and a mix of motley and stripe called motley-striped (tser are weird, some have X pattern, some have some weird unconsistent stripe). The genetic behind the pattern is similar to the color but there are some differnces

All corn have the same scientific name the is Elaphe guttata guttata (i'm not sure about the spelling) no matter what the color or pattern is. They are all the same species the thing that changes is the Morph (Amel, ener, motley, lavender, hypo, etc ...)

usally corns get about 4-5 feets going from 3 feet to a max of 6 feets, personnally i only have a juvenile corn of 2 feets

I dont think that the size of the male differs from the size of the female ... maybe the female gets a little bigger but i don't know since i only have a juveline male ...

Except for breeding purpose i don't think the male or female changes anything, they are both very docile and like to be handled

For the good site on corns where you can ask newbie question, well your on one Ask ANYTHING you want here there will always be someone to answer even if the question seems stupid ! By the way before asking you might want to try to do a search on the forums on the question you have maybe someone already posted it.

it's a good thing you get "The corn snake manual" everybody says it's good, too bad i haven't someone that sells it near me

Have fun with your future snake !

Thank you very much, I appreciate your lenghty response ! I've spent the last few hours reading through the forms and looking at other websites.

The only thing I am having a hard time figuring out, is where i can purchase frozen pinky mice in my area........
as.. i heard it's not best to feed live mice ?

I guess I should call and ask my local pet stores.

This is kind of a random question. But do snakes eat fish ?

- Jeni

Some do, but... *clears throat* Corn snakes and most other snakes should eat mice, rats, lizards, rodents or if they're big enough small birds. ABSOLOUTELY No crickets, no fish, no bits of table scraps. Eating those *will* cause your snake to die of malnutrition or starvation. It is best to feed your animal frozen rodents. Call your local pet stores, at least one will carry frozen pinks or other mice.

Hmmm for frozen pinkies you should look around and ask petshops, maybe they'll have some. Also you could breed your own mouses and kill them, but usually people do that when they have a couple of snakes too feed

You could also buy mices on the internet, there are some breeders selling them. I personnaly don't buy from them because i got some pet shops around selling them but i heard they are great

there is Big Cheese Rodent Factory (BCRF) at : http://www.bigcheeserodents.com/

and there is Rodentpro as : http://www.rodentpro.com/

you can a serach on them you'll they will be a lotof threads about them. I heard that BCRF is better than Rodentpro but i never tried them so i can't tell if that changed ...

As you might have heard it is better to feed f/t (frozen and thawed) mices to snakes, because a live mouse could harm the snake, it could transmit undesireble stuff, etc ... if you read on the forum you'll find a lot of reason. Feeding live should only be done for problematic snakes. Sometime snakes wont want to eat that prekilled mouse, he could only want a live one, if you have a snke like that you come here and you ask us what to do i personnaly don't have any experience on live eating only snakes so i can't tell you much more

Corns don't eat fish. But some snakes (i don't know exacly wich) eat fishs, but those are venomous snakes, i heard that snake living in the water are the most venomous snakes.

By the way Corns snakes are a constricting snake. To kill it's meal he have to squeeze it. One day you might see him constric his meal. Mine did not consctric when he was eating pinkies and fuzzie, but now he eats biggers meal so he started to squeaze them, it's fun to see. I can't imagin a snake in the wild squeazing a fish and then drowing in the water. Oh and you might be wondering, corns can swim (well actually i think they can)

Celestine8 & Bibz - Thankyou both for the reply.
I think I am going to start planning out my tank and calling local pet stores. I am really excited about my future snake...

-Jeni

That is really good that you start planning everything BEFORE you buy the snake, some people may buy a snake impulsively and has nothing prepared and they only heard what thepet shops said and those often dies

You did a great thing by coming to this forum for your question !

have fun with your future snake

Just for the sake of clarity, and definitely not to pick at anyone in particular ...

Not all fish eating snakes are venomous.

Most fish eating snakes are non-venomous.

In the Western hemishpere, the most venomous snakes are not prone to water habitats and do not normally eat fish, though they may at times.

Cornsnakes are variable creatures, and they will eat many things that we do not often consider. Rich Z. met a guy once who had a yearling corn in apparent good health. The guy did not know what he had, and he brought it to Rich for identification. Rich told him what it was and asked where he was getting his mice for the animal. The guy then told Rich that he had been feeding it earthworms. It had been eating earthworms for a year, and had been thriving on them! Go figure ...

Now, you SHOULD only feed your corns mice for this one reason, if for no other: They have a tendancy to find something they really like and reject everything else, if you expose them to a variety of prey items. So, you may think it's cool to feed your corn a lizard, just because you have an extra one sometime. But if your corn goes on a hunger strike because it now wants ONLY that type of food and no other (and they WILL occassionally starve themselves to death because they want something in particular), and that food item cost $6.99 a piece, then you will certainly wish you could still feed those mice for 30 cents a piece!

ok im sorry Darin i just said what i overheard somewhere about that fish eating snake Thats a good thing you told me that

btw that earthworm thing is really strange ! i hear so many people say that their snake will ONLY eat that 6.99$ Lizard and he managed to feed his snake with earthworm !!!

Man i must imagine that snake receving that first f/t mice, even if it was a really crappy one he must have been the happiest snake in the world :dancer: