How Did You Acquire Your First Corn Snake?

[EsotericForest]

I'm curious as how everybody here acquired their first corn snake, and what got them into the hobby in the first place? Was it your first reptile? First snake? Or where you already in the hobby, and somehow got turned onto corn snakes?

As for my story, I was volunteering at a zoo and was able to handle corn snakes, bally pythons, and a red tailed boa. I started falling in love with snakes and couldn't wait to have one of my own. I had a young corn snake a year ago, but he had some health issues and unfortunately didn't last very long. I suppose you could consider that my first corn snake, but since I didn't have him very long I would consider my current corn snake Kiowa as my first. Some of you may already know the story, but I was over in Minneapolis just checking out the local Petsmart. I saw a sign on the corn snake enclosure that said 75% off, so I decided to inquire on what was actually wrong with the snake. To my surprise it was simply because he was getting too large (90 grams at the time) and because he had a bad attitude...and all the staff was afraid of him. I asked to hold him, and when I reached in to grab him, he did tag me. It was the first time I've been bitten, so it did surprise me a bit, but what surprised me more was how little it hurt haha. I was able to hold him for awhile and he started to calm down. I ended up taking him home, and he hasn't shown a sign of aggression since that first day. I was a little worried at first when all the employees were actually thanking me for taking him ...but it just came down to him needing somebody who knew how to handle him properly, as well as putting him in a properly sized vivarium.

That's how my addiction started, and I consider it a minor miracle that I don't have more corn snakes yet. I have been looking around a bit, but since I'm moving soon and getting married in about a month, I felt it best to hold off until afterward. Thankfully my wife to be also loves snakes...so to make matters worse, I have somebody to enable my addiction

Regards,
Josh

 

[admitchell08]

Nice story! I applaud you for still taking that snake home after it tagged you! Most people would have been turned off by this lol.
Here's my story...

Ever since I was very young, I had a sincere interest in reptiles. Growing up, I had my fair share of anoles, a leopard gecko, other various lizards, and an iguana. One day I started browsing the internet looking at snakes, and I stumbled upon Don Soderberg's site and saw a picture of a creamsicle okeetee. I was sold. I thought it was the best looking snake I had ever seen. Ever since then, I had wanted a corn. My mom thought snakes were the devil and didn't want them anywhere on her property, let alone in her house. Therefor, my dream could not be realized then. Then when I was nearing my 19th birthday, I told her I wanted to buy myself a cornsnake for my birthday. Oddly enough, she didn't object, yet she didn't really agree to it either. She kind of didn't even acknowledge my statement. So just to be sure I wasn't going to be evicted if I brought home a snake, I kept restating my intentions for the next few days all the way up until my birthday. Not hearing any objections, I went to PetCo planning on buying a corn. I did just that, however I left with two...LOL. She seemed ok with it! I've been addicted from then on out and it has just been snowballing since then!

:cheers:
Andrew

 

[ZoologyGirl]

Mine was my first reptile.

I've been interested in them for years, but was never in a position to be able to get one (living at home, living in dorms, etc...etc...)

When I was finally in a position to be able to get one I went in search of one of my favorite morphs (hypo lavender) and got my first guy from Carol.

 

[K. Rene]

Well my story started in Dec. 2009. I was surfing craigslist pet section like I do everyday and I found an add for baby corn snakes ( very similar to this add http://corvallis.craigslist.org/pet/1812944754.html ) it also mentioned that they were the perfect starter reptile. I had caught and kept some lizards as a kid but I always thought having A (as in one singular) snake would be cool LOL I decided to surprise my Boyfriend Allen with a snake for Christmas and I figured I might as well get one for me too. I purchased them from Nancy who is a knowledgeable breeder and a wonderful lady I am happy to call my friend now (even though I blame her for my addiction). I got sisters, an Anery (Reimei) and Snow (Snowflake). And then I was hooked. I soon became fascinated by all their beautiful colors and I have been buying and adopting snakes since. We're holding steady at 11 corns but we may be getting a Mexican black king or two in the future lol

 

[ArpeggioAngel]

I wanted a snake ever since I was little. Parents wouldn't let me have one and when Joe and I started renting together he told me they were boring. However, he decided he wanted to get a lizard so we went to the petstore one day and he ended up coming home with an amel instead. I decided to try geckos so we weren't "into" the same thing, but I couldn't help it - I still wanted a snake. Ended up buying a beautiful striped cal king online and although he was gorgeous - he hated me! Anyone else could handle him no problem, but he was constantly trying to kill me! So he ended up being Joe's as well and I instead picked up a miami phase corn at a local reptile show. Now 5 yrs later - we have about 150 snakes and counting!

 

[EsotericForest]

Nice story! I applaud you for still taking that snake home after it tagged you! Most people would have been turned off by this lol.
Here's my story...

Ever since I was very young, I had a sincere interest in reptiles. Growing up, I had my fair share of anoles, a leopard gecko, other various lizards, and an iguana. One day I started browsing the internet looking at snakes, and I stumbled upon Don Soderberg's site and saw a picture of a creamsicle okeetee. I was sold. I thought it was the best looking snake I had ever seen. Ever since then, I had wanted a corn. My mom thought snakes were the devil and didn't want them anywhere on her property, let alone in her house. Therefor, my dream could not be realized then. Then when I was nearing my 19th birthday, I told her I wanted to buy myself a cornsnake for my birthday. Oddly enough, she didn't object, yet she didn't really agree to it either. She kind of didn't even acknowledge my statement. So just to be sure I wasn't going to be evicted if I brought home a snake, I kept restating my intentions for the next few days all the way up until my birthday. Not hearing any objections, I went to PetCo planning on buying a corn. I did just that, however I left with two...LOL. She seemed ok with it! I've been addicted from then on out and it has just been snowballing since then!

:cheers:
Andrew

My father was hesitant about the snakes as well, which is a big reason why it took me as long as it did to get one. What does your mother think of snakes now?

 

[admitchell08]

My father was hesitant about the snakes as well, which is a big reason why it took me as long as it did to get one. What does your mother think of snakes now?

She still doesn't like them, but she doesn't hate them anymore, either. She used to be terrified. One time when I was younger I brought in a ball python that my friend had cus I wanted to show her how cool it was. She immediately became petrified, and then seconds later began screaming at me and crying! I felt so horrible! But now she is indifferent, I guess. She is fine with them, as long as she doesn't have to see them eating or have to touch them!

 

[wax32]

I've kept turtles and snakes and other herps since I was about 12 years old. It started with wild caught water snakes and garters and speckled kings, red eared sliders, common snappers, gulf coast toads, green anoles... box turtles, (briefly) "horny toads" (till I figured out I couldn't catch enough ants). My first corn was purchased at a mom and pop store near my (then girlfriend), now wife's, house. Total whim, I went in for fish food.

I ended up selling that one, plus the other corns, kings, milks, and boas that soon followed when I moved to North Dakota to go to grad school.

I ordered a couple of candy cane corn snakes from Kathy Love soon after settling in, dunno why I bothered selling the other ones! Two boas soon followed ... then I bought a California king snake that I still have 15 years later. When I graduated I sold them all (but the king) to a friend who had been coming over to check them out for a few months....

For a few years since moving back home I kept a couple of kinds of dart frogs and a green tree frog. They are a lot of work and I ended up selling them. A couple of years after I moved back home to New Orleans I bought another couple of corns from Kathy Love: Tabasco the sunglow and Pepper the ghost. They are the first of my current collection, which is now up to 13 corns, 2 ball pythons and that same old kingsnake.

 

[A10Airknight]

I had always loved reptiles and also wanted snakes as a child, but my mom was frightened of them and always said no.

In college, I worked at the St. Louis Zoo for a period as a camp counselor, and loved handling the snakes there. (We handled Ball Pythons, Corn snakes, several species of milksnake, kingsnakes, pinesnakes, rosy boas, and red tail boas). My mom still said no to having a snake.

When I moved out on my own, I decided to get one, and picked up a beautiful little anery motley at a PETCO. Unfortunately, it died two weeks later, likely due to my inability to control the heat (I made a horrible mistake with a ceramic heater. By the time I figured out what was wrong and fixed the problem, it was too late. The baby regurged a meal, and then never ate again).

I sat down, found this site, properly did the research, and bought a beautiful little normal from PJCReptiles. Ive been hooked ever since.

Great thread. I love the stories.

 

[EsotericForest]

She still doesn't like them, but she doesn't hate them anymore, either. She used to be terrified. One time when I was younger I brought in a ball python that my friend had cus I wanted to show her how cool it was. She immediately became petrified, and then seconds later began screaming at me and crying! I felt so horrible! But now she is indifferent, I guess. She is fine with them, as long as she doesn't have to see them eating or have to touch them!

Wow. It's amazing the extreme reactions some people can have to something like a snake. You couldn't even say the word snake around my grandma without her freaking out.

Great thread. I love the stories.

It is pretty interesting to read them. I find it somewhat encouraging as well since some people here are much higher up on the "food chain" if you will, when it comes to owning corn snakes. But once you read the stories, you realize we've all pretty much had humble beginnings. Nobody starts out knowing all the care requirements, and are able to instantly recognize all the morphs .

 

[vetusvates]

I went to grade school in Kentucky, and caught my first eastern milk when I was in the fourth or fifth grade in 1972. In the street, outside our house. I could show you the exact spot today. They were everywhere. In the next year or so, I became a tireless looker-for-snakes. I might have had a book or two, and decided a corn was my mission.
Combing a creek bed, I found a cottonmouth having killed and about to eat the prettiest snake I had ever seen. That was many moons ago, but I remember orange. (I could, again, take you to the exact spot.) I rescued the dead snake from the menu, and brought him home, hoping beyond hope that my heroics would breathe a spark of life back into him. My mom was mortified. No life came back. So I kept him under the house and memorized every inch, until my mom made me bury the poor smelly (she said,...kids don't mind smells so much) carcass. It might have been an eastern milk, copperhead, or corn snake...but it was orange, or at least the most orange thing I had seen in the snake world so far at fourth or fifth grade, and I decided then I needed a live one. I exhausted the woods and fields of Kentucky and then Louisiana for the next 20 years...and came up empty handed.
I kept many black rats, texas rats, grey rats, keeled green snakes, Louisiana milks, speckled kings, buttermilk snakes, copperheads, pygmy rattlers, canebrakes, and others over the 70's and 80's. Hatched eggs. Midwifed (= watched) a pygmy rattler delivery. Caught all manner of lizards,...and hatched eggs, caught turtles,...and hatched eggs. All the time looking for the Holy Grail. A corn snake. Feverishly night-driving, when old enough, dragging friends and even my mom a long. Yes, she relaxed. She figured I could be doing a lot worse than reading about and looking for snakes.
Then a friend and I went on a vacation to Houston in 1992, and I dragged him though EVERY commercial and mom&pop pet store carrying snakes in the area of Houston. Some places twice. Until I found the perfect "classic"...and brought it home to Louisiana. I started raising feeders again. The snake ate 2 or 3 times. And died of mouth rot (Candida sp.). I was heart broken. In retrospect, I could see in my mind that that particular shop was kept way too wet. But, I knew there would come another day.

In the feverish weekend before hurricane Gustav hit on Monday, September 1, 2008, I was stocking up on dog supplies at PetSmart, altogether expecting the worst. Which meant an evacuation for me. No electricity, no AC, no TV, no internet...means evacuation for me. In the melee, throughout town, and inside the PetSmart, a friend of mine offered me half-off a classic they had there. I took it, even though it wasn't very orange, but I felt sorry for it. It ended up evacuating with me, for the four reasons described above.

By now (as opposed to 1972) there were/are many more books, and even computers. I was a computer nut, so I found people who knew more than me and were kind and seemed to know what they were about.
So here I am...several very orange snakes later...

 

[A10Airknight]

Wow. It's amazing the extreme reactions some people can have to something like a snake. You couldn't even say the word snake around my grandma without her freaking out.

That's funny, my grandma is the same way. If she sees a snake on the tv, she quickly shuts it off

 

[Bartholomew]

When I was in 7th grade, my science teacher had two corn snakes. A Normal/Classic and a Reverse Okeetee. It was final testing and she let me hold the snakes. When I did, I fell in love. I absolutley knew I had to have one. I begged and begged my dad and mom. But they never let me. My mom gave in and she let me get one from Petsmart. Ive been wanting more ever since. She says: "Untill you move out". I am counting the days...

 

[eisoj5]

I worked at a natural history museum for five years, and on Halloween we did a "Snake Room" where a local snake guy brought a bunch of different species for kids to hold. Us docents, with myself as no exception, clamored to work that room those nights. I fell in love with the cuddly creatures, but didn't put in research or time into thinking about getting one.

Somewhere down the line, I got married, got a job I love in an area my husband really would prefer not to live in long-term. So he looked for work in California--and a couple years ago, I said, "Hey, if you go to CA, I'm gonna get a snake"--sort of like a weak consolation/thing to look forward to if he did get a job far away from me. This summer, he decided to go to the Bay Area for a two-month vacation with his cousin to see if he really does like it there, so I said..."I'm getting a snake!!" Started seriously doing the research before he'd even finalized arrangements on his end, picked one out on VMSHerp, and a few days before my husband left for his vacay, Ophelia joined the family

I mentioned the anery coloration to him one night as matching the colors of Corwin from the Amber series and he was somewhat amenable to the idea of maaaaaaaybe another snake. Someday.

 

[wstphal]

I spent the first part of my childhood in the Tampa Bay area chasing frogs, toads, anoles, garters, rough green snakes, little fish in the local creek and everything else. My mother was TERRIFIED of snakes, to the point of causing an otherwise sensible woman to scream and or faint, so I never could keep any of the things I caught. She was OK with releasing toads & frogs in the immediate vicinity but snakes had to be gotten off the premises before she saw them so I could never keep them. I saw, but did not ever touch, cottonmouths, copperheads & rattlesnakes. Saw but never caught some larger sized red & black snakes. I wonder now if they were cornsnakes. At the time I was very cautious, as a kid, because I had been taught that red & black might be a coral snake so don't touch them, but these were 4-5 feet & I am not sure coral snakes get that long, right?

Fast forward to adulthood. I had a friend who had an albino burm. I thought that snake was wonderful, just too darn big for me! It was very stupid and very sweet. That friend gifted me with a hatchling classic & supplies, and I named him or her Imhotep. I assumed, stupid me! that the instructions she gave me for care were right, but they weren't and Imhotep died suddenly with no warning several months later after eating, pooping & shedding normally. In retrospect I realize the UTH with no thermostat or rheostat was probably the problem. That was around 1999.

In 2009 I got Humphrey off CL & the madness began. I am up to 9 corns & one BP with more on the way and a multigeneration "secret" breeding scheme to be implemented.

 

[kalena]

I had wild-caught turtles, frogs, lizards while I was growing up in NY, and then worked in a pet shop in my teens in TX, so I was always bringing home all sorts of pets - rats, mice, guinea pigs, lizards birds - everything except snakes (looking back, my mom was really tolerant). I wasn't afraid of the baby boas we sold in the shop, but I didn't really care to own a snake at the time. I grew up, got married, and only had dogs and fish for many years. Then my husband passed away and the pet-loving child in me came out again. And now it was fueled by two pet-loving children of my own. But I wanted pets that would be easy to care for, wouldn't smell, and wouldn't be too expensive to maintain. We started with leopard geckos, started researching snakes, and then in November 2009, a friend gave us a bearded dragon. In January this year, we decided to start checking out snakes again. My 9-yr-old daughter and I saw an ad on Craigslist for some baby corns - pretty pink and orange ones. Jennifer looked at me and said, "Wow, those are really pretty... Do you think we could get one?" I was like "Heck yeah we can get one!" The breeder lived nearby, so we drove over and took home one of her amel babies. Then we went back and got a normal from her. Then we became good friends, our daughters became best friends, we hit all the reptile expos and swap Craigslist snake opinions... Now 6 months later, I'm up to 11 corns and shopping for more...

 

[Floof]

Looks like I'm kind of the oddball here--growing up, I never really noticed or cared about reptiles. Knew they existed, but... Eh. That's about it. I remotely remember being extremely excited and interested when a classmate brought his family's pet boa constrictor (I think that's what it was, anyway!) to show-and-tell in the 1st or 2nd grade, but that's the extent of it. In fact, the first time I'd even held a snake was the day my first corn arrived!

Back in '07, after almost 4 years living in our current house, we found out that alligator lizards like to "hibernate" in our basement. We found that out ONLY because my brother's friend found one behind a cabinet in the bathroom (to this day, we still wonder why he was looking behind the cabinets.. lol). My mom, brother, and brother's friend were all terrified of this tiny, 5-6" long lizard (who we all thought was a salamander at the time; we also thought it'd climbed up through the toilet), so they called my friend and I down to deal with it. I decided to keep it. It escaped overnight. I got sad, and, after a couple days of searching and coming to the conclusion that it must've been eaten by the dogs, I started researching how to take care of various reptiles--starting with lizards and moving on to snakes when I found out the more common lizards (bearded dragons and iguanas, namely) were so difficult, expensive, and downright labor-intensive to care for. Came across corn snakes and fell in love with their manageable size, easy care, and great variety of color. Oh, and the fact that snakes don't have to be fed live food.

So, after reading around and researching here, we got a tank & supplies, ordered a Herpstat, and placed an order for a lovely little Anery female from Serpenco.

By the way, I found that lizard about a week after it got loose. S/he had taken solace in the folds of a shirt stuffed into a 3-foot stack of clothing I'd been putting off, for months, putting away in the dresser, out of reach of the dogs, and, I assume, was there the entire time. I promptly released it at the edge of our back yard. I like to think the feisty youngster who I found stalking around by the Beardie's tank twice last fall was one of his/her offspring.

 

[TexAveri]

We let some "friends" move in till the got a place and they brought their female corn snake with them. well long story very much shorter they did terribly bad so we ended up kicking them out. we gave them a month to get their stuff and with the abandonment laws she is now ours that was like 3 or so months ago and we are even getting our third corn next week!

 

[oneirogenesis]

I can attest to having always wanted a snake as well. When I was five I wanted a boa constrictor more than anything in the world, but my mother was afraid of salmonella.

My corn was my first snake. I went to a reptile expo to look at scorpions, but I knew prior that I would end up wanting a snake. I did some researching before attending on good beginner snakes. I didn't trust any of the breeders carrying scorpions as much as the first breeder I met who had beautiful MBKs and classic corns. It was a tough choice between an MBK and his last corn snake, but for a first snake I figured I couldn't go wrong with a corn. Four more snakes later and she's still my favourite of the bunch.

Of course several months later I came back and picked up his last baby MBK too! I just couldn't go without having both.

 

[MysticExotics]

I've always liked snakes, but never thought of owning any.
I initially got into snakes when my ferret breeder gave me a link for the local Herp. Society, to newtork for feeder mice, for my ferrets.

I think she knew exactly what she was doing, because it wasn't long before I was seeking out my first corn snake. I decided I wanted to find a baby, & contacted a local breeder.
I picked out a baby (he's almost a year old), & then asked to see the Anery male he had, & loved him. I ended up bring back both of them.

From there, I added several more, when a local guy took in several corns from a breeder, to rehome for him, at wholesale. I ended up taking in several of them.

I love corns, & at some point, I will add carpet pythons to my collection, & hopefully Eastern Indigos as well.