Ginafish
Erotic Bagle
After a prolonged interest in snakes, and about two months of research, I finally decided on getting a corn snake.
My current set-up includes a ten gallon tank with a locking mesh lid, a 100-watt heat lamp (I have a digital thermometer with a probe set up in the bottom of the substrate on the heated side, which measures 84 degrees pretty consistantly, and the cool side is about 72 degrees), and two ceramic hides, one on the warm and one on the cool side of the tank, a nice little water bowl, a climbing branch...
And finally the snake! He's a mottled sunglow hatchling, about fourteen inches in length, and is a charming little fellow. I didn't realize snakes had quite the depth of personality they do, having never owned one in my life. I did, however, come into the ownership of an iguana when I was ten years old, and had a difficult time caring for it as it was meant as a Christmas gift, and I had no previous knowledge of reptiles at the time, and this was my only other experience owning herps.
Back to my little corn!
I brought him home last Thursday, and it's been a week that I've had the pleasure of learning how to care for him. He's responded to the ten to fifteen minute sessions of handling a day quite well, but since I fed him yesterday I'm not going to handle him for at least three days, as that's what I've read you're supposed to do up to three days after they've fed. I change the water every day (with bottled spring water only), and the substrate of paper towels is changed every other day, unless there's fecal matter present, upon which I change it immediately.
Speaking of his first feeding, it went very well: Yesterday, which is when I fed him, I first got a small clean tupperware container, and then took a frozen pinky and thawed it in a sealed plastic bag under hot water for a few minutes until good and warm, and then set it in the tupperware, and carefully washed my hands (I've read it's good to clean the smell of a rodent off your hands before handling a snake or else they might be tempted to strike at you thinking you're food), then I placed Snakey (as I've dubbed him until a good name comes up), into his feeding tupperware. He paused, flicked his tongue to check out the new environment, and pretty much immediately went for the pinky, and within a minute he was devouring it! It went down with no problems, which has really bolstered my confidence that I might just be able to be a decent herp owner!
Anyway, I've been lurking around reading many of the helpful posts on these forums for a few weeks now, and decided to make myself known. I hope to be posting quite a bit on cornsnakes.com from now on, and am glad to have finally become acquainted with the awesome, adorable, beautiful, adaptive, and ever so cute world of corns!
My current set-up includes a ten gallon tank with a locking mesh lid, a 100-watt heat lamp (I have a digital thermometer with a probe set up in the bottom of the substrate on the heated side, which measures 84 degrees pretty consistantly, and the cool side is about 72 degrees), and two ceramic hides, one on the warm and one on the cool side of the tank, a nice little water bowl, a climbing branch...
And finally the snake! He's a mottled sunglow hatchling, about fourteen inches in length, and is a charming little fellow. I didn't realize snakes had quite the depth of personality they do, having never owned one in my life. I did, however, come into the ownership of an iguana when I was ten years old, and had a difficult time caring for it as it was meant as a Christmas gift, and I had no previous knowledge of reptiles at the time, and this was my only other experience owning herps.
Back to my little corn!
I brought him home last Thursday, and it's been a week that I've had the pleasure of learning how to care for him. He's responded to the ten to fifteen minute sessions of handling a day quite well, but since I fed him yesterday I'm not going to handle him for at least three days, as that's what I've read you're supposed to do up to three days after they've fed. I change the water every day (with bottled spring water only), and the substrate of paper towels is changed every other day, unless there's fecal matter present, upon which I change it immediately.Speaking of his first feeding, it went very well: Yesterday, which is when I fed him, I first got a small clean tupperware container, and then took a frozen pinky and thawed it in a sealed plastic bag under hot water for a few minutes until good and warm, and then set it in the tupperware, and carefully washed my hands (I've read it's good to clean the smell of a rodent off your hands before handling a snake or else they might be tempted to strike at you thinking you're food), then I placed Snakey (as I've dubbed him until a good name comes up), into his feeding tupperware. He paused, flicked his tongue to check out the new environment, and pretty much immediately went for the pinky, and within a minute he was devouring it! It went down with no problems, which has really bolstered my confidence that I might just be able to be a decent herp owner!
Anyway, I've been lurking around reading many of the helpful posts on these forums for a few weeks now, and decided to make myself known. I hope to be posting quite a bit on cornsnakes.com from now on, and am glad to have finally become acquainted with the awesome, adorable, beautiful, adaptive, and ever so cute world of corns!
