Please post photos of your corns for size reference (and age)

I have done quite a bit of reading about corn snake sizes this week. The general thought is that they reach their full size between the ages of 3-5 (most agreeing on 3), and that males are often larger than females. After this, they grow extremely slowly. Size seems to vary between 2.5 - 5 feet for adults.

I have attached a photo of me holding an adult female corn snake last year (left), and Ruby (right). Ruby is a tiny little girl. I am already incredibly attached to her, but I adopted her (sight unseen) for educational purposes, and I am simply not comfortable handling her out in the open at her current size. She would also be very difficult to see for students sitting farther back, as I sometimes speak to crowds of up to 100. I was incredibly surprised at her size when I first saw her but adopted her anyway to remove her from the less-than-ideal care she was receiving from her previous owners (who said they were "bored" with her. )

I have not been able to weigh Ruby yet. Her shed measured 32" (just over 2.5 feet) but she is likely slightly less, because the shed is stretced. Even though it makes me sad, I am considering finding her a new forever home (there are many reptile rescues in my state, and our wonderful local wildlife rehabber may be interested in using her for education). But before I make a difficult decision, I wanted to see the snakes here for comparison. Would you be able to post a photo of yourself (e.g. your hand, arm, neck, etc.) with your snake, and state what his/her age is?

⬆️ this is Artemis and he was hatched on 7/14/2016


⬆️ this is Athena and she was hatched 9/03/2016


⬆️ this is Artemis and she was hatched in June of 2016 I did not get the exact day



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And I just took the pic


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I plopped a few snakes into an empty 32qt Sterilite tub. Here are my smallest and largest 2016s, Tibalt the Cherry Amel (eating fuzzies) and Churro the wild type (eating small weaned mice):



And here are two of my 2015s, Charlie the Strawberry Plasma (eating large weaned mice) and Zulu the Hypo(berry?) (eating large adult mice):

I have an almost four-year-old snake that's probably around the same size as Ruby. The photo is from February, she's grown a little bit since then but not too much. She's a bit over two feet long, maybe two and a half. This isn't the best photo of her but it's the most recent.

Here is my one year old.

My snake, "Rufus" a male, approximately 2-1/2 years old, length 4 feet, weight 405 grams. Eats 1 large mouse every 10 to 14 days.

Originally Posted by LadyJemima

I have done quite a bit of reading about corn snake sizes this week. The general thought is that they reach their full size between the ages of 3-5 (most agreeing on 3), and that males are often larger than females..........

Actually snakes continue to grow their entire life. It just gets slower and slower and slower. While it's true they reach "Adult Maturity" in about 3 years (some sooner some later) they will never reach "Full Size" because at some point they will die.

It's not uncommon for a baby to double in length its first 3 months. It may Double again 6 months later. It may double again in about a year, an then double again in 3 more years. By the time they reach adulthood, they may only add a half inch or inch per year, but yes, they are still growing.

Years ago there was a well known Corn Snake named "Slither" who at the time was the world's largest registered corn snake. It was just over 6 feet long and was about 9 years old. Unfortunately Slither died after suffering an illness. The snakes grow at different rates and can attain different sizes because of genetics just like some people when full grown may be 4 feet tall and weigh 90 pounds and another person may be 7 feet tall and weigh 300 pounds. The difference is most people do stop growing at some point, but the snakes will continue.

If you're interested or curious, you can find videos of "Slither" the corn snake on youtube.

They do grow at different rates. When breeding, some babies grow faster than others, even on an identical feeding schedule, same size feeders. Then there are some that may start off as problem feeders, will get a slower start to growing.
Some morphs seem to get bigger than others as well.
The largest I have seen was a Snow male, that was 7yrs old, and over 1,000 grams. He was not fat. I have seen a few very large Snows.

I don't have current photos, but am planning on doing a weight and photo day soon.