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How Did You Acquire Your First Corn Snake?

Like many of you, I've always been an animal-lover. Any type of animal, bugs included, would be caught (or rescued from the cat) when I was a kid. If you could look through any of my old photo albums, you'd see pictures of me as a kid holding preying mantises, frogs, baby birds, wild mice, lizards, and the occasional snake.

As much as I love critters in general, I've always had a particular fascination with snakes. However, my mom has always been afraid of them, and frequently tells us her traumatic childhood stories involving snakes, so I knew getting one as a pet was not possible. I was allowed to get a red-eared slider, however. He was a nice pet for many years.

My relatives and my family were camping at a lake once and my cousin and I found an awesome garter snake that we carried around all day. It was such a nice snake and completely tolerated us handling it and passing it back and forth. At the end of the day, we released it at the shore and we were surprised to see how well it could swim!

When I was in 5th grade, one of the teachers for that grade had two corn snakes as his class pets. He would sometimes allow students to come in at lunch and hold his snakes. This was my first experience holding a pet snake and it tried to go down my shorts and up my sleeves, but I loved it.

Sometime in 2011, I was driving home from work one evening and saw something on the road that looked like a chain. I pulled the car over and saw a beautiful black and white king snake. I carefully caught it and excitedly brought it home. I did not have any snakes at the time, so I wouldn't have known how to give it a proper enclosure, so I released it after a day. Despite their reputation, this was a really laid-back king. It reminded me how much I wanted a pet snake.

I finally overrode my mother's intolerance of snakes and got my first corn later that year, when I was 21. She wasn't terribly happy about it, but when she saw my little deli cup with a tiny red little amel, even she admitted it was kind of cute. I have convinced her to hold or touch my snakes a few times, but she still doesn't really like them.

Now I'm 23 and I'm up to 8 snakes. My boyfriend was hesitant about my additions at first, but now he's supportive, as long as I'm able to give them all proper care. I'm really interested in getting a larger snake in the future, but I'd like to wait until my corns are all grown up.
 
The first corn? He was a birthday present from my husband and kids. They had NO idea what they began! I'd wanted a corn snake for years and years, somehow never gotten one though I've had critters of all kinds for all of my life. I love colors, love genetics, and love animals. Corns are pretty much the perfect hobby. I admit I'd still love to have that field full of brood mares I always wanted, but I love my beautiful corns. :)
 
No you don't Caryl...I have two and have no time for them...too busy trimming other people's horses' hooves to have time for mine!! They are money sucking critters!!! Snakes are way cheaper to keep and a lot less work!
 
I've always loved reptiles since I was a little girl. I'd bring in every little critter I could find from outside. Mainly lizards, frogs, and turtles. Of course being little at the time mom let me keep them for a while and then kindly explained I had to release them if I wanted them to live and be healthy. I started this obsession when I was five. I've always loved snakes, and thought they were so beautiful. But I grew up with a family that was terrified. But after getting to be around snakes and hold them, I knew I was dead set on having one.
Still living in the parent's house, I knew I had to abide by their rules still. I asked if I could buy myself a snake for a Christmas gift. It took some convincing, and several lectures from them about why they didn't see benefits to keeping a snake, but a few months later after Christmas I finally got her, and couldn't be happier.
Now, my mom is no longer terrified of them, and actually is starting to see them as beautiful creatures, and can't wait to hold my little girl. Dad...he doesn't really like it, but he can at least stand to look at her, and isn't totally creeped out when seeing me thawing out a mouse. ;)
 
Well, my son (6 yrs old) has always been drawn to reptiles. On a whim, we bought him a red-eared slider turtle that became known as Mrs. Larry (long story).
A few summers ago, we purchased a membership to a local nature center where began to learn a lot about snakes. I was never overly scared of snakes, but never saw any appeal in being near them. ;) However, the more we went to the nature center learned and the more I saw the wonder in my son's (and daughter's) eyes over these creatures, the more interested I became.
We went to a "Creepy Crawly" day at the nature center, and met a nice lady who had a lot of her snakes on display who took a lot of time to explain things to my son and I happened to ask what a good starter snake would be. She said corns were great for beginners. We also met a family with a blue tongue skink that I thought was uber cool.
All the while, Mrs. Larry was becoming larger and tank cleanings were becoming more of a chore for me. We eventually decided to rehome her at the turtle pond at the Nature Center....and realized we chose poorly for our first reptile pet.
Also, during this time, we were finding lots of black racers in the yard that my son would try and catch. He was constantly asking for another reptile pet. We told him if he caught a black racer he could keep it......not thinking he could catch one and not knowing much about black racer personalities. Well, wouldn't ya know, he catches one one day in a net.
I had the lovely job of removing the snake from the net and putting it into a rubbermaid tub (had lots on hand for anoles that he was always catching and keeping for a while). The thing bit me up pretty good, which I thought was due to my lack of experience with snakes. Did some research on how to keep the thing alive, and learned that this was really not going to make a nice pet. :) Tried to talk my son into letting it go, and of course, was faced with, "but you said!!!!"
So, Daddy and I talked and decided we would buy him a good pet snake in exchange for releasing the biting monster. ;) I contacted Kathy Love as I had learned enough to know she was a "pretty good cornsnake breeder" ha! And she lived close, so I thought I could drive over and pick one up. She said they were in the process of moving, and could ship me one, but also recommended a nice lady near me if I didn't want to ship. I checked out the recommended breeder's Facebook page and lo and behold it was the nice lady we had met at Creepy Crawly day. After a few emails and phone calls, and about 3 days of impatient kids waiting, the nice lady showed up at our house with a beautiful 10 month old normal corn and a few pinky mice. She helped me with our set-up and we were off and running!
And about 6 months later, we decided to add a lizard to the household and I got my blue tongue skink that I had fallen for a fews years back too! We are a pretty happy critter family. I'd like to add more snakes, hubby says no, and that's OK. There's plenty of time. This summer will be one year of having our precious Ala. She has been a joy and so easy. We certainly did a much better job picking good reptile pets for our family this time around. :)
 
Allidraggy has been obsessed with things with scales since she was very little (seriously, her lovey since 8 months was a stuffed dragon puppet, complete with scaly skin and fangs), and about age 5, she really started putting in a plea for a pet snake.

So I, good homeschooling mom that I am, made a critical error. I told my 7 yr old that when I want to do a project at the University that requires funding, I have to write a proposal and present it, and that if she wanted to add a snake to the family, she would have to do the research as far as what kind of snake would be a good fit and show that she knew what it would take and have a plan to do it. I was expecting this to at least slow down the questions for awhile (and that she probably wouldn't do the actual proposal presentation). I also told her that I wasn't dealing with anything that had to eat live mice.

Except it didn't. About 2 weeks before last fall's Repticon show, she presented us with a 20 slide powerpoint presentation, comparing and contrasting the care needs of multiple kinds of snakes, including the information that most snakes eat frozen/thawed, and that frozen/thawed is actually preferred. My husband and I looked at each other and commented "Well, I guess we're getting a snake!".

And, thinking it was cute, I posted it on my facebook and homeschooling boards-mostly hoping to find someone who had a tank that was sitting in their attic to reduce costs for this snake, which Alli was convinced we'd be bringing home from Repticon, which gave us only a short time to get a viv set up and ready to go.

Then I got a call from a friend of a friend-who's teen daughter had a corn snake she'd just listed with a rescue-and who, as a homeschool mom herself, LOVED the fact that Alli had done all this work to get a snake. We went, met Wadjet, Alli did the interview and paperwork herself to adopt the snake (and, I think, impressed everyone that she was so prepared), and we brought Wadjet home. She's turned out to be the perfect snake for us to learn from, and I've discovered that by bringing a snake that's been homeschooled her entire life into our family, she's very used to dealing with groups of kids who want to learn about her. I don't know if she was born as calm as she is or as great of a demonstration animal, or if it's a learned behavior, but I've yet to see a kid who wasn't fascinated by her and won over to her quite quickly, even those who are scared of snakes, and the only time she's been irritable was right around her last shed, when I think her body was telling her it was time to lay eggs (and I empathize completely there!)

I have always liked animals, and have been involved in rescue groups and the like for year, but I have to say, I'd never expected to fall in love with a snake-but Wadjet has won me over, too.

--Donna
 
Son wanted a corn snake. Petco was having a sale. We got the last tiny little corn snake left at 8:30pm. Piglet started the collection. I no longer buy any thing from Petco and have gotten some lovely corns from wonderful members on here!
 
It was near Mother's Day when I was 8 years old and my dad somehow got ahold of the idea of checking out a local reptile store for a cool pet. We had (have--he's still around) a pet iguana, and we were always rescuing and housing wild snakes we'd find around the house or in the pool.

We went to the store and Dad held a classic corn snake. Well, he grabbed the snake tightly with a full-hand wrap, which is the only way we were used to picking up flailing wild snakes. The corn snake objected, and bit the nearest thing--me. I bled like crazy, but it didn't hurt. Dad's reaction was, "No teeth in the wound? At least we know it's healthy."

We bought the snake and named him Checkers.

Checkers was awesome. He loved to hang out and be a couch potato and wrap around Dad, and he loved to kill his dead mice. We'd had him for a few months when he went into a shed cycle and refused his food. We thought he wouldn't be hungry after he finished shedding, so we only bought him a couple of pinkies instead of his usual adult mouse.

The next morning, we woke up to my mom screaming. Checkers had escaped his cage, climbed across the room divider, and into the canary's cage. After his meal, he was too fat to escape, so there he was. Mom made us take him back to the store.

I've always loved snakes, and I've always had a soft spot for corns even though my introduction to them was teeth-first at age 8. So when I got my own place to live, I started looking into snakes again, and of course I looked into corns. I did a few years' worth of research, and then attended a Repticon in Birmingham in June of 2012. I spoke with a reptile vet, and he introduced me to Walter Smith. I got his business card, and in July my roommate and I picked up our first three corns from him. My roommate had never held a snake before, and he fell in love hard. Now, a year later, we have 8 snakes and are planning a breeding program. :bird:
 
I've always loved animals. As soon as I could walk I was chasing after anything that moved outside just to check it out. With that and the stories my dad told me about all the wild pets he had as a kid I was hooked from the beginning. My mom hates snakes but my dad didn't see any reason for you to harm any animal and he showed me at around 8 how to catch and handle a lot of wild reptile species. I knew I would never get a pet outside of a cat or dog as long as I lived at home. Fast forward to today. I married my wife back in 2010 and we just got a great new place in 2012 that had the extra space so I started pushing her towards getting a snake as a pet. We already had three cats and I still really wanted a snake since I was a kid so I wasn't going to give up on the idea. Eventually I found a nice side job to make enough to get my first set up and snake. My wife now loves Rapunzel and is always wanting to hold her and take her out to show company. I'm working on my new viv stack at the moment and as soon as it's done we'll be adding a couple more scale babies to the family. It's an addiction like everybody here says and we're hooked.
 
Some great stories on here! Haha Here's mine.
So ever since I was a little one I loved snakes. I would make my parents take me to the zoo almost every weekend to look in the reptile house. They would buy me rubber snakes and the stuffed animal snakes, but never a real one because my mother hates them.

So about a 6 months ago I got a job and my birthday was coming up. I decided to get myself a pet snake! I went out while my family was gone and bought my first snake. I came home, set up the vivarium and put my new pet corn snake in it. I didn't tell anyone.

So about 3 days after I bought my snake, my mom walked in my room and saw my little snake playing around in his cage. She let out a enormous scream and told me to get rid of it. I told her no and after several weeks of trying to get rid of it, she stopped. In fact, now she even handles Diablo(my baby corn) every now and then.
 
Similar story to everyone else.

I always had a love for all animals and I was always keeping frogs, snakes, and lizards that I was catching outside but having to release them back into the wild. Eventually I received my first corn snake as a birthday present and it all started from that day on...
 
Well, I HATED snakes or anything reptilian like for the longest time. I blame this on my parents ignorance. But when I got married and moved out, I became a high school science teacher and wanted a class pet. I remember my science teacher had reptiles because they did well in our settings. So I attended the Daytona Reptile Breeders Expo and held my first ever corn snake, a lovely sunglow motley and was hooked. I also got a crested gecko at the same time. Quickly found out she is not the best class pet because its too cold in my classroom so she is at home and is my baby. I now currently have 2 corn snakes, 2 ball pythons, 4 cresteds, 1 chahoua and 1 redfoot tortoise, 2 dogs...and a partridge in a pear tree haha
 
Corn snakes were not my first reptile, nor my first snake, but they are the first animal I've owned that has evolved into a real hobby.

My first snake was actually a garter snake that I got from a friend back in elementary school. Shortly after he passed away, I had a pair of ribbon snakes for a couple years. (At the time, I just had pet store care guides to work with and I've since learned that most the information presented in them was incorrect... including hot rocks. :()

I decided on a corn snake because I used to volunteer at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis when I was in middle school, and was lucky enough to spend time working in animal care for the science gallery. (They typically did not allow kids my age to work back there, but I was a particularly critter-oriented kid and I give that gallery supervisor all the thanks in the world for recognizing that in me.) My favorite two animals to work with were Polly the opposum and Squiggly the amel corn. So when I decided that I wanted a pet snake again, corns were at the forefront of my research.

I picked up Reggie in 2009 as a baby from a local reptile expo. At the time, I really only wanted a pet. However, as I got more involved with the community here, I realized that I'm quite fascinated by corn snake genetics, and began taking steps towards building a breeding program. After some focused purchases, a few very lucky acquisitions, and a lot of fabulous mentoring by experienced members... here I am. :)
 
I went to the petstore for a routine stop to grab dogfood, but with the 3 kids in tow. Out we walk with dogfood AND a cornsnake. My father in law gave the kids some spending money for christmas, the kids saw the snake, pooled their money together and bought the corn as well as all it's accessories and enough feeders for 3 months. After one week, the corn escaped not to be found. I got a hold of the breeder that sold it to the petstore, went out and picked out another snake to replace the kids beloved "redneck". Two months later, we find redneck-houdini, so we now have two thriving cornsnakes. Within 5 months of NEVER even interacting with a reptile or rodent, we now have two snakes and a soon to be ASF colony. Unbelievable lol
 
here's my story..
My "I gotta have one!" moment came when I actually went to the local reptile shop with one of my girlfriends to get some rat pups for her B.P. While we were waiting we of course browsed the tanks.. and I instantly fell inlove with the corn snake hatchlings they had. I couldn't help but "Ouu and awe" at the TINY little worms that sat individually in what made the 5 gallon tanks look like a huge Barron boxes.. :eek:

I instantly ran home and started doing my research on snakes and was excited to find out that corns were a great beginner snake! I was sold! I kept up my research, and once I felt comfortable with what I knew, I went to go and pick out my very first snake! He was a hatchling, about 4 months old and just 14 grams. I named him Sirius and his been growing steadily ever since comming home.

and now 8 months later I have 2 snakes! and couldn't be happier!
honestly I never would of guessed.. :p they steal your flippen heart!!
 
Good lord, I can't remember exactly...... :eek:

I believe the first one I ever had was when my mom and dad went down to Florida (we were living in Maryland at the time) and my mom bought two snakes, one for me and the other for my brother Ron. They were a boa and a corn snake. Mom gave me first pick and I chose the corn snake.

But I have another memory that I can't recall whether it came before or after the above. My mom used to drop me off at pet shop in downtown Maryland that always carried a lot of snakes. I would just help around with minor stuff there, and I remember buying a pair of corn snakes that came from the Florida Keys.

Over the years I've had a lot of people ask me why I decided to breed snakes in the first place. Honestly the answer is so simple that it's ridiculous. I had a few snakes and read a book that mentioned that a real good way to determine if wild animals are acclimated well to captivity is if they will readily breed in cages. So heck, I just wanted to see if my snakes were happy where they were at. :D Obviously they were just FINE with the arrangement.
 
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