Be careful with the Munson plan - it is rather aggressive, so definitely be more conservative when moving up sizes as sian.kelley said.
Babies are sometimes more reluctant to feed, but you should be okay as long as wherever you are getting your snake from can assure you that the snake has had at least several meals. I had no problems feeding with my snake when she was a baby.
As for general care sheet, this site will help out a lot and there are books frequently recommended - Kathy Love has a handbook that is very reputable.
Note: The following is my opinion. I am NOT an expert - but I have had my snake for almost 6 years and have read a lot of literature. My tips for general care:
-
When you get the corn snake, leave him alone for about 4-5 days, no touching no matter how tempting.
-
After a feed, I do not handle for 48 hours. 24 hours is really the minimum time to avoid handling to prevent a regurge.
-I recommend
feeding outside of the tank for 2 reasons. (1) Snake does not associate things in its viv with food and (2) no substrate will be stuck to the mouse causing a possible impaction. Of course, some people feed in the viv with no problems, just putting the mouse on a paper towel to avoid getting substrate on it.
-
Substrate choices vary - aspen is the most popular choice. I use paper towels layered enough so my snake can burrow. If you pick a different kind of wood chip, be sure to look it up on here because some woods are toxic to snakes even though the petstore sells them. There are also many other choices - coconut fiber, newsprint, reptibark etc. They all have different properties so just do some research on that.
-Fresh
water should always be available. I change mine every other day usually. I use tap, because where I live it is safe to use tap - so best judgement on that. Just make sure NEVER to use distilled because it doesn't have the necessary minerals.
- Signs of
shed are cloudy colors and blue-er or hazy eyes. Many snakes do not like to eat or be handled when this happens. If the shed is not perfect, there is a sticky on the health forum about how to deal with that. Also, providing a hide box with damp paper towels or spaghnum moss can help. Just be careful not to make the viv too humid because while that will help shedding, it can cause a respiratory infection.
-Ideally you should find a
reptile vet near you, just in case anything goes wrong. Signs of sickness include wheezing, discharge around the nose or mouth and out of charecter behavior - for example, if your snake is not alert and a little squirmy when they usually are.
-At least one warm side
hide and one cool side hide are ideal, corn snakes like to feel covered. I have also found that my corn snake loves paper towel tubes. She is obsessed with them
. I also have this fake wood climbing structure and I switch her viv around every couple months for stimulation.
-Snakes will
escape if they can. Guaranteed. So if you are using a tank with a clip on screen lid, use many of those C-clips.
-A
temp gradient is pretty important but a UTH will help maintain that. As I said earlier, use a thermostat with the UTH. If you need a recommendation for that - I use the Hydrofarm thermostat (its not designed for snakes but many people use it with them and it works well and is only 30 dollars on Amazon). Also, you should have a digital temperature probe, I pin the sensor end down with the edge of the warm hide. I also have a heat gun to check temps - and its always cool to take your snake's temperature
. The way my temps work is like this: the cool side is 70-75. Above the warm side on the glass under the substrate, it is 88* F and on top of the substrate it is 85* F. To achieve this setting, I set my thermostat to 103* F. Its important the glass temp is not too hot even if on top of the substrate is good because snakes can burrow down all the way to the glass.
That was a lot I just wrote - let me know if anything is confusing, or unclear. And again - this is just MY opinion. There are people way more experienced than me here who can also always help you out.
Congrats on becoming a snake parent! It really is amazing. Share pictures when you get him/her.
