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How did you get into corn snakes?

Ravenessa

Ravenessa

New member
Just curious... I have always loved reptiles and amphibians, my moms fault.. we would collect wild specimen keep for a few days to look at and then set free... Yes my mom was that cool... however she was deadly afraid of rats and I loved them too...

I worked at a childrens zoo when I was 15, and they had a reptile/insectarium next door... where I ended up spending my time.. I loved snakes but hated that you had to feed rats/mice.. They fed their corn oxheart so I was like ok maybe I could have a corn snake.

However don't laugh, I am a little scared of snakes.. I can take a dog bite any day (have had closer to a 100 stitches in my head front and back after a couple of bites), but frikken snakes when they strike spook me. So I have sort of stayed away from them. Just been drooling over pictures.. However I have kept lizards for 17 years now, my oldest is almost 7 at this point..

So I finally took the plunge and got a couple of corns, and sometimes they are a little hissy babies, (don't laugh) but I use a small hook, once they are up they usually stop and now I can hold them.. Yes I am that chicken.. BUT I have improved in the 2 weeks I have had them to the point that yesterday I set up the jungle carpet we have at work and dared to move him (the bigger the snake the more scared I am). I am so glad I finally took the plunge, I've always loved all their colors and if I had known what I know today I would have done it 10 years ago... Im a little sad I didn't.. they are so much easier and cleaner than lizards LOL My lizards are brats who make HUGE messes... but I love them... snakes are such appreciative animals!

So tell me your story!! <3
 
Great story :)

Well mine is a little long. I got a job from a friend at a local Pet Store. They needed someone with Fish experience and I have both fresh and saltwater experience. The only thing is the person who runs the fish department also runs the reptile department.

I had no problem with reptiles but I knew very little about them. I had a pet frog once but he was equivalent to a pet rock. Anyway after I got the job I started researching like crazy the reptiles we kept and their care. I wanted to make sure I could give people proper information about their care just like I could for fish.

Then I met Snow. I have never been afraid of snakes but never considered one as a pet because I thought you HAD to feed them live food and that seemed like a hassle. I met Snow (an adult snow cornsnake). She was brought in by our supplier and was most likely an older breeder. She was the first snake I ever held and is such a special animal. She taught me so much about snakes.

The store I worked at encouraged people to carry around animals to help socialize the animals and to teach customers about them(while trying to sell things to them). Snow became my go to carry around animal. People were drawn to her not only by her beauty but her calm nature and curiosity. Even people that were uneasy around snakes soon found themselves petting her and asking questions about her. The kids LOVED her. Soon other employees wanted to hold her and carry her around and learn about how to take care of her.

Then Snow got sick. Very sick. She stopped eating for months then she had 2 bad sheds in a row. Not long after she developed bleeding ulcers on her body. She kept getting dehydrated and was loosing a lot of weight. Eventually I took her to the managers and told them we either needed to get her help or euthanize her because she was suffering.

My managers talked to one of the vets that came to give vaccines and they took her to a different vet then brought her back to us. They gave us injectable antibiotics that had to be given every other day. I took her home to treat so she would get some peace and quiet. She responded really well and seemed so much happier to be in a proper set up. At the store she was kept in a 40 gallon with an overhead lamp and no hide.

Once she started getting better she went into a few shed cycles and finally started eating again after 4 months. She started putting weight back on and was becoming a very colorful snow which she had never been at the store.

Not long after she was better I decided I could not take her back. I bought her for a heavily discounted price and she's mine now. She is such a character and is very happy and healthy.
 
Before and After shots of her
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After (she's a little washed out in the picture though
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As a kid I used to catch corns (we called them red rat snakes) kings, and blacksnakes and keep them for the summer in screen lid covered glass aquariums in my house until about the third escape. Then they got relegated to my Dad's shed. There were no manufactured cages for reptiles, heat beyond hot rocks, or frozen mice in the early 80's and I made a lot of mistakes out of both ignorance and shoddy equipment. My first purchased snake was an indigo from the local pet shop, and I fed it everything from live chicks to uncooked hotdogs.
 
I was on Craigslist looking for something OTHER than a corn snake, but the title came up and I clicked out of curiosity. It was a Fire corn. I had to have it. I bought her from Damon, a local breeder and seller here on the forum. He was ever so patient and answered every question I threw at him until I finished every book on corns ever written. I never knew snakes came in such brilliant colors, and after that I was hooked.
 
I've always loved all kinds of creatures and with my Mother's indulgence and massive patience, I got to bring home all kinds of critters and attempt to "take care" of them since I was around 2 years old. Those included pill bugs, a jumping spider, many preying mantis, a couple of garter snakes, (Mom was not a fan) some found frogs, lizards, various crabs, some fish tanks, a bunny, a box turtle, some hamsters that we bred for a bit, dogs, cats, rats, ferrets, some parakeets, a cockatiel, that was actually my Mom's but he decided he loved me, and some zebra finches that I bred for a number of years, starting when I was around 13.
Those were very neat, as I was able to nearly hand tame the babies and but for the house cats we now have, I'd love to be able to keep a few now. However, I do have to admit that I don't miss their ability to projectile poop in a 380 degree arc!

Though I'd kept wild caught garters for a few years, Tavia (corn) was the first snake I ever bought. Initially I was actually researching Red Eared Sliders, as I'd had the chance to acquire a baby RES. After about 2 weeks of looking into them, I decided that they had a lot bigger care requirements than I could provide and that I should pass.

But I still wanted something new and somehow two random pieces of information came together in my head and I thought of the corn snake and began researching those, which led me to this forum and all the amazing pictures of corn morphs and other species of reptiles I'd never heard of before, that, along with all the enablers on here, helped to cement my addiction to reptiles, particularly snakes!

The bits of information was a show I watched when I was very little on either Discovery or Animal Planet, back when those channels used to be good. They had a show that would take a look at some type of pet, often exotic ones, and give a breakdown of care and their pros and cons. I watched one on the corn snake and the show had very favorable things to say about them, including that they came in 9 color and pattern mutations. ;-)
Obviously, that was awhile ago, compared to how many they come in now!
Although I'd always liked snakes, feeding live rodents was a big bar to me ever owning most of them, as I wasn't aware they would eat anything else. The garters were able to be fed fish. But then about a year before I started looking into the RES, our town got a Petco and they had those little signs on their snake cages saying that they highly recommend feeding frozen thawed mice to their snakes and I was somewhat intrigued by that and though I didn't think too much about it at the time, that little tidbit stayed with me and I remembered it again when I thought of looking into some kind of reptile other than the RES.
And that's how I got addicted!
 
When I was in second grade, my mother brought me home a garter snake that her biology professor gave her. I had never had a pet reptile and hasn't asked for one, so I was pretty surprised. He was a full grown adult and was probably at least a decade old when I got him, so he only lived a few years after that. He was probably the calmest and most interactive snake I've ever met. I believe it was the early nineties when GA illegalized ownership of native snake species, although I was unaware of it at the time. After I fell in love with the garter snake I started "field helping," which was easy since we lived in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I caught king snakes, ring neck snakes, more garter snakes, black and gray rat snakes, red-bellied water snakes (my favorite!), and a couple corns, which didn't seem to be too common in the mountains where I grew up. I spotted several venomous ones along the way, including a beautiful coral snake. My parents never discouraged this...they may have been a little too "free range" with us, lol!

Once I went to college none of my apartments would allow snakes, which discouraged me from buying any as a pet. Corns have always been my favorite but are illegal in GA. Since living in Ohio and getting a better job, I've accumulated over two dozen corns, a couple ball pythons, a few lizards, and a boa constrictor!
 
My journey to pet ownership is a little different than most others here so far.

I never had pets as a child due to space and time restrictions, but my mother loves snakes and would catch garter snakes whenever she found them. When I moved away from home for University, I developed moderate depression and anxiety which I continue to struggle with. As a student, I didn't really have time for a pet, but once I had graduated and was working I was looking into getting an animal to help manage my depression. As I live in an apartment and am away sporadically, I needed a pet that would be fairly self sufficient and apartment manager approved. I bought Jax from a lady on kijiji and he's active and amusing and a trouble maker. I bought Pixel off a guy on kijiji who couldn't care for him anymore and he's more chill and cuddly. The interaction and routine help me be more functional in my day to day life.

Also the engineerd in me likes automating, building, and decorating; so it worked out well.
 
Wow!! I love this!! It is fun to see so many others that have the same problem of RAS going on... (reptile acquiring syndrome).. And Afred I can relate, I was depressed too when I first moved out, it took a toll... Pets help tremendously.. I say instead of prescribing pills Dr's should prescribe pet therapy..

Please people keep it coming!! <3
 
I can vouch for reptiles being therapeutic. To me, admiring the beauty of the snakes, caring for them, and watching them grow is kind of like gardening. Except sometimes the rose bushes wrap around you and stab....
 
I've always been afraid of snakes, my oldest daughter who is now 15yrs old wanted one a few years ago, but I said under no conditions would we ever have a snake in this house.

A few years ago I held a fox snake at the nature center just to show my daughter that I could do it.

Then, a couple of weeks ago at my son's school conferences his teacher had snakes and my son wanted me to see them. He had to ball pythons, a milksnake and baby corns. So I held the adult milksnake and then the baby corn. I was instantly in love with the babies.

I'm the type of person that has to have what I want right when I want it. So I went to Petsmart the next day and bought Nagini, then the teacher called me and said I could have one of his babies, so that's how I got Jafar.

Now the daughter who always wanted snakes says she doesn't like babies, so she rarely holds them, but my boys, 7 and 12yrs love them and my 14yr old daughter, not so much. Husband wants nothing to do with them. ;)
 
I don't actually remember what got me started loving snakes so much, but I'll never forget Cory the corn snake who cemented my love for corns. I work with a lot of rescued dogs, a little with horses and cats, but never really with exotics. 6 years ago I was with a dog rescue group at a rescue event where there was an "all animal" rescue. They had a corn snake named Cory, and of course I asked if I could hold him. He wrapped his tail around the strap of my tank top, threaded his way through my ponytail, and hung down my back just watching the world go by for about half an hour. I was in love with him of course, but it wasn't the right time for me to get a new pet. I had just gotten my third dog, who was basically feral and needed a lot of work, as well as 2 other dogs who were still puppies with high energy and exercise needs. Just keeping up with them was exhausting enough! Now, they are all well adjusted and well past their puppy years. The final piece of the puzzle for me was my boyfriend (at the time, ex now), who also loves snakes, almost bought me a snake for valentines day. I thought that was super romantic, and it got me thinking about how great that would have been and how I am definitely in a better position for snakes now. He also taught me a lot about living in the moment, and I decided to take his advice and go for it. I've wanted to for about a million years now, so it was about time!

The pictures are of Cory the corn snake, whom I did NOT end up adopting, but who does get all the credit for my story. :cheers:

cory.jpg

View attachment Cory resized.bmp
 
robin you crack me up, but I can relate..

and <3 Cory... and yes living in the moment is important... we humans do way too little of that...
 
My DD wanted a snake for years. I mean like from age 2 or so on. At age 7, she took the statement "You can't have a pet until we know you're able to care for it" quite literally, and created a 24 page proposal to show that she knew about snakes and that compared three different snake species-a ball python, a corn snake, and a rough green snake.

I posted it in a "Oh, how cute" way on the local Homeschooling board, and got a message from a parent that her daughter had a corn snake she was trying to rehome before she went off to college. We went over, met Wadjet, and brought her home, complete with habitat-which we upgraded because it was awfully small for an adult corn.

About a year later, she got a BP the same way and for the same reasons. I didn't make her write a new paper for this one, though.
 
I am simply amazed that a seven year old child could write a 24 page proposal. My seven year old can barely spell and write a sentence. You've got one smart cookie there ;)
 
I have to agree, I am dyslexic and could barely read until I was 10 and writing a coherent 1 page proposal would have been out of my reach until at least 13, let alone 24 pages!
 
I dabbled in gartersnakes and ribbon snakes a little as a kid, so I've always liked snakes.

In middle school, I volunteered at the local children's museum in their science/nature gallery. They had an amelamistic corn named Squiggly. I handled him almost every time I worked in the animal care facility. He was my bro. I wanted a cornsnake pretty much from that point on, but didn't really have the opportunity for snakes again until I was an adult.

Then I got Reggie at a local reptile expo, got involved on this forum, and it all kind of snowballed from there. XD
 
When I go to college, I want to study herpology, and I also want to breed reptiles, so I spent 5 months researching different reptiles, then asked my dad for a leopard gecko, then 4 months researching and saving up, and fast forward to a month ago "Dad, can I have a corn snake as well?" Soooooo, I've done 3 months research about corn snakes and I'm a very proud person, with my herps!
 
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