Hello from Loveland

I am still very new to being a corn mom. Have two babies- a female that's 3 months old and in her 1st shed since we've had her (2 weeks), and a male that's 2 weeks old. Not sure what Angel is (my female in my profile pic), but Nemo (my boy) is an albino Okeetee. They have different parents. Would love to hear from other corn parents who have a boy and girl baby housed together, or those of you who have done this in the past and who's babies are all grown up now. Also would love advice on Angel's "shedding". Her eyes are blue which I noticed yesterday, and now her coloring is a little duller. I hear this can take about 9-10 days start to finish. When do I start misting her habitat to raise the humidity so she can shed properly?

Hi there!

First of all you should not have both your babies in the same Viv... specially a male and a female. Do a search on the forums about "cohabitating" and you will find out why.

Biggest thing for me is unplanned/too early breedings. If you female is bred when she is too small she could get egg bound and die, plain and simple.

um, ok... i'm confused! I was under the impression that our 1-3 month old corns are WAY too young to try and breed. Also, I purchased the Corn Snake Manual written by Bill and Kathy Love, which I thought was the best resource, but if its saying cohabitation is doable and best with 1 male and 2 females, then it must not be as good a resource as i've been told??? Anyhow, since I have 2 corns and 1 on the way, what is the best step to take going forward? Its going to take me a bit to have the money available to get 2 more tank setups, and don't want to loose any of my babies in the meantime.

dumpyflower said:

um, ok... i'm confused! I was under the impression that our 1-3 month old corns are WAY too young to try and breed. Also, I purchased the Corn Snake Manual written by Bill and Kathy Love, which I thought was the best resource, but if its saying cohabitation is doable and best with 1 male and 2 females, then it must not be as good a resource as i've been told??? Anyhow, since I have 2 corns and 1 on the way, what is the best step to take going forward? Its going to take me a bit to have the money available to get 2 more tank setups, and don't want to loose any of my babies in the meantime.

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Most of us here are fairly anti-cohabitation because of various risks, including illness & premature breeding. The breeding thing is a year or so away for you with your little babies, but snakes can get really stressed out by living with other snakes & get sick or stop eating or both and that could happen to babies. And hatchlings don't have the safety margin for not eating that an older snake does.

The safest thing is to separate them, but you don't need 2 more tanks right away. Plastic tubs, like Rubbermaid or Sterilite, work fine for baby snakes, and are very inexpensive at the hardware store, Walmart, Target, etc. Drill holes with a cheap soldering iron, use metal tape (used in HVAC) to tape a heat mat to the bottom, fasten the lid down tight & there you go!

Oh, I hope somebody already told you that heat mats are TOO HOT unless they are on some kind of control device like a thermostat or a rheostat. If no one did, a lot of UTHs will be over 100F without one, but a plug-in lamp dimmer ($10 at Home Depot) will solve that problem.

Questions? This is a great place to learn. I've been here since October, and I am sure the experienced people here saved Humphrey's life back at the beginning!

There are too many risks to keeping snakes together. Cannibalism and stress (which can equal poor feeding and potential death) are two major factors with keeping snakes together. Snakes are solitary by nature. They don't need or want a companion, until they are old enough to breed and even then they should not be kept together longer than it takes to breed. Yours are too young now, but in a year the female could breed even though she wouldn't be big enough and would certainly have problems, if not die.

Rule of thumb for keeping snakes - 1 snake = 1 enclosure.

That's way too young for them to breed, Cattsy is just saying that when they do become large enough to be capable to breed that can be too early for it to be safe.

Housing them together can be dangerous. It's best to keep them separate. Make sure you don't feed them in the same area as they might fight for the same morsel, confuse the smell on the other one, etc and one snake ends up eating the other. This is more dangerous as babies.

thanks for the info

actually, no, nobody told me about the dangers of UTHs. I use one under our 20 gal. but it is made for a 5 gal. plastic kritter keeper so it doesn't warm the glass very much. I check it at least daily and it is always only warm to the touch on the inside of the viv. I also make use of thermometers (which I check a few times a day at least) to make sure everyone's comfy and safe.
As far as the plastic tubs go, do you mean the plastic shoebox size? or do they need bigger?
Since day 1 I have fed Angel, and now Nemo, in a separate container. so far the only time Angel has eaten has been when I force fed her last week (and now she's shedding). Nemo won't eat on his own either, but haven't been pushing it because he's so young yet. Have tried f/t pinkie on forceps being wiggled, f/t left in container for an hour, f/t left in container w/ snake overnight, and a live pinkie in container with snake- nothing has worked yet. Could use some advice on this as well!

dumpyflower said:

As far as the plastic tubs go, do you mean the plastic shoebox size? or do they need bigger?

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Yeah, those would work for months. Most breeders use those for hatchlings & younglings. Almost all my corns live in tubs, actually, and the 40-60Q sizes make pretty good housing for an adult corn.

dumpyflower said:

Since day 1 I have fed Angel, and now Nemo, in a separate container. so far the only time Angel has eaten has been when I force fed her last week (and now she's shedding). Nemo won't eat on his own either, but haven't been pushing it because he's so young yet. Have tried f/t pinkie on forceps being wiggled, f/t left in container for an hour, f/t left in container w/ snake overnight, and a live pinkie in container with snake- nothing has worked yet. Could use some advice on this as well!

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I haven't had the hatchling-that-won't-eat issue yet. Really really warm pinks and a dark or covered small feeding container (I use the deli cups by little ones were shipped in but they are now almost too big for them). Lots of things have been mentioned though:

scent pink with mouse bedding (maybe stronger smells will work)
wash pink with mild soap (maybe it's too smelly)
scenting with tuna broth
scenting with KFC chicken grease (yeah, really)
put hatchling in paper bag with small holes punched in it & leave overnight
make sure pink is really reall
take the snake for a drive around the block in the car (like babies!)
put the feeding tub on top of the dryer, put something heavy in the dryer & put it on air fluff (like babies!)

There may be more, but those are the ones I remember having been mentioned as working

Not eating is a sure sign of stress. They need to be separated ASAP.

Hmmm...

I don't remember encouraging people to keep a male and 2 females together in a cage all of the time, although that is a good breeding group ratio. But I only put them together when they are breeding, not for the whole season.

Co-habbing is SOMETIMES doable, but not recommended. Sometimes it works...and sometimes it doesn't. Stress is usually the worst problem, causing 1 or more to go off feed or regurge. So why take the chance?

When somebody is totally set on keeping them together, I advise them on the most likely way to succeed. But I do try to talk them out of it. And the longer I have been breeding, the harder I try to talk beginners out of it.

We wrote the Manual back in the '90s, and the Comprehensive Guide 5 years later. I don't remember the specifics of the 1 male and 2 female cohab info you mentioned. Could you give me the page number so I could look up exactly how I phrased it?

Thanks,
Kathy

dumpyflower said:

actually, no, nobody told me about the dangers of UTHs. I use one under our 20 gal. but it is made for a 5 gal. plastic kritter keeper so it doesn't warm the glass very much. I check it at least daily and it is always only warm to the touch on the inside of the viv. I also make use of thermometers (which I check a few times a day at least) to make sure everyone's comfy and safe.
As far as the plastic tubs go, do you mean the plastic shoebox size? or do they need bigger?
Since day 1 I have fed Angel, and now Nemo, in a separate container. so far the only time Angel has eaten has been when I force fed her last week (and now she's shedding). Nemo won't eat on his own either, but haven't been pushing it because he's so young yet. Have tried f/t pinkie on forceps being wiggled, f/t left in container for an hour, f/t left in container w/ snake overnight, and a live pinkie in container with snake- nothing has worked yet. Could use some advice on this as well!

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IMO, I like the shoebox sized rubbermaid container, or the ones that are 11 - 15 qt, with the lids that have locking handles (for the babies under a year old).You want to make sure they cannot push up on the lid & escape. I hear they're quite the escape artists.
I have my some of my smaller sub adults in 10gallong tanks, & the full grown & bigger sub adults are in 20gal (20 long are better).
*One thing about the rubbermaid containers, if you buy them new, I would recommend that you drill/melt the holes, then let the containers sit out for a couple weeks, so the new plastic fumes don't harm your snake.

If Angel is shedding her skin now, she may have been "blue" when you fed her, & sometimes they won't eat in that stage.

I have some hatchlings, that didn't eat until almost 2 weeks after their first shed (at almost 3 weeks old). They finally just got hungry enough to eat. But I only tried once a week, so as to not stress them.
Give it at least 5 days, before you try again.

I am new at this too, but I have learned alot from reading a couple books, & from several people here. There's a LOT of knowledge here, & they're very helpful.

Kathy- I am sorry, I made a mistake!!

I sat down and read the section on housing in the corn snakes guide you wrote and it was NOT your book I had read about cohabitation in. I had taken quite a few books out of the library a few weeks back before I bought this one, and I must have read it in one of those. Yours actually states on page 40- " If you feel you must keep two corns in the same cage, at least keep both separate for a minimum of their first three months in your care."
I have been having a hard time with feeding my male baby in particular. He seems afraid of the f/t pinkie if it lies too close to him, or completely uninterested if on the other side of feeding container. I don't have access to live mice of any size in my area and think that would scare him further anyway. What can I do to get him to eat? And I think my regular attempts at getting him to eat have made him afraid of me, because when I reach in for him now he'll slither away really fast. He's fine once I have him, but I feel bad chasing him initially.

Glad to hear that I didn't write anything that could be misunderstood as encouraging cohabbing, lol!

Some babies can be a real pain. I lose a few each year, and some get tube fed for a while. Just keep the stress level down - that helps. And live pinks are sometimes necessary to get them going. Here is the FAQ I wrote on the subject - I think it might actually be posted here on CS.com.


I get that question A LOT! So I have written an FAQ about it. Here it is - hope it helps!

Getting Baby Corns to Eat

There are lots of tricks for getting babies to eat - some are mentioned in the Manual. Feeding in a little deli cup is one of the first things to try. Some will only take live, or lizard scenting. Some want you to cut the frozen pink in half, then put both halves in the deli cup. Sometimes non feeders start feeding after bumping them around on the way to an expo. Some people have had luck dipping pinks in chicken broth, although it has not worked for me. Or try tease feeding as mentioned in my book. As a last resort, force feed and then brumate them until spring and see if that makes a difference.
I keep a couple of colonies of deer mice and dwarf hamsters to scent regular pinks. I just take out some of the dirtiest bedding and bury the pinks in it (loosely, so they don't suffocate) for about 10 minutes. I find that about 20 - 25% of non-feeders (where I already tried braining, heads, bodies, etc) will usually take mouse pinkies scented with another kind of rodent if you confine them overnight with it in a deli cup. Try rats, gerbils, and especially deer mice, etc, etc. You never know what might be their cue. If you don't have other rodent bedding, try your local petshop. Maybe I will start bagging it up and selling it at the shows, lol! Of course you can scent with lizard or tree frog for those who don't go for the rodent aromas. The best method for scenting is to keep an anole or frog in the freezer and cut into its belly. Smear the head of the mouse into the belly (you may have to slightly defrost the lizard first) with the gut contents - seems the best way to elicit a feeding response if a particular corn is interested in feeding on lizards or frogs.
Don't "bother" your babies too much by trying to feed them everyday, or even every other day. That just causes them more stress. Just leave them completely alone in the best setup you can (see the Cornsnake Manual for details about temps, hide boxes, etc). Keep the babies one to a cage. And leave them alone to cause as little stress as possible. Only try to feed them every 3 or 4 days or so.
They usually won't feed until after their first shed, and you usually have a little over a month before you really have to consider force feeding, if the baby absorbed his yolk and looks healthy.
Try all of these things, starting with the easiest and least invasive, working your way up to the force feeding if needed.

This is my standard baby/new snake feeding method.

Feed at dusk or later.

Thaw the pink in warm or hot water. It takes less than a minute in hot. At the last second, run it under the hottest tap water you have.

Cut four slits with a tiny scissors through the skin of the back of the pink.

Put the pink in a deli cup.

Get the snake, put the snake in the deli cup with the lid on.

If the snake does not show interest and begin eating in 1-2 minutes, cover the deli with a dish towel, set the kitchen timer for an hour, walk away, do not disturb, no peeking.

After an hour, if the snake has not eaten, run the pink under the hottest water again, and repeat.

If after another hour the snake hasn't eaten, if this is a new snake that hasn't been feeding reliably for you, reheat one more time and put the whole deli cup, with the lid on, in the viv, in the middle, not on the UTH, cover with a paper towel, leave overnight.

If the snake has not eaten by morning, try again in five days, with no handling in between. He needs to relax completely, not be worrying about you and what you are going to do to him.