• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

I'm new and i want to get a corn snake.

B

bullfrog

New member
Hey guys. I've always wanted to get a pet but my parents would never let me. Now that im 15 they say i can get one. So i opted to get a snake. I've heard from quite a few people that corn snakes are wonderful snakes to start out with. I have a few questions. What size holding tank should i get in gallons? When corn snakes bite ... does it hurt? What do you feed them? How much would it cost to get a tank set up and ready with heating, bedding,climbing limbs ect....? How hard are they do care for? and last but not least ( for now lol) do they like to be held and played with? Thanks allot
 
Well, before you even consider buying a corn I recommend that you buy the Corn Snake Manual by Bill and Kathy Love. This book, in my opinion, is the bible of corn snake keepers.

To answer your questions:

- Well, I don't have a clue about gallons but a baby corn should be housed in a viv measuring about 1.5 feet by about 8 inches. A long time before they are fully grown, they should be in a viv measuring between three and four feet with a depth of about 18 inches or so.
-Corns have lots of teeth that face inwards, which hold prey in place as the snake constricts. Baby corn bites don't really hurt at all because they are so small but an adult bite can sometimes be quite a shock. All bites should be treated with an antiseptic cream. Corns are generally good-natured snakes and only really bite when provoked. However, you do get the occasional little bugger.
-The best food for corns, both in captivity and in the wild are rodents ie. mice. Baby corns eat 'pinky' mice (babies with no fur) and adults eat adult mice. The stages in between are 'hopper' and 'weanling'.
-A good tank will cost about £75 or $100 but you can probably find them a bit cheaper or buy a second-hand one for $50 or so. Other vital items are -heat mat -substrate -two hides -thermostat. I'm not sure how much these cost if you're in the US but when I first started out I spent £200 on the whole set-up including the snakes. If you shop around you will be able to beat that price but the keeping of snakes ISN'T CHEAP. Climbing branches aren't necessary and can take up a lot of space. However, some corns do like to climb so there's no harm in providing one- just make sure it's securely fastened.
-Corns are among the most easy snakes to care for but they still require lots of attention, time and money and they don't like being messed around.
-Corns, on average, like to be handled but not 'played with'. Reptiles aren't the sorts of pets you buy for a cuddly relationship. With regular handling, your pet should become quite tame but will not sit quietly in your arms or around your neck. Corns are very lively and just keep on moving.

Hope I was of help and, any time you have a question, just post it and someone will help you out. Remember what I said about the Corn Snake Manual -Read it!!!!
 
For the tank: a hatchling corn needs a smaller one, but an adult can be housed in a 20 gallon Long aquarium. (It has to be the long type.) That size will normally be sufficient for an adult corn for its entire life. The main expenses involved with a corn snake are the initial ones - buying the snake, tank, substrate, hides, under-tank heating pad, water dish, climbing limbs, etc. After that, corns are pretty inexpensive pets, food being the main expense. You can buy frozen mice in bulk to save money, and thaw them out as needed. If you're getting a hatchling, you'll need pinky mice. When the snake gets a little bigger, you can move up to fuzzies, then hoppers, and so on. I think Neil answered your other questions pretty well, so I'll stop now. :)
 
hey thanks guys! I have a few more questions. When the snakes go to the bathroom how much comes out ... like rat size or cat size? lol And how come i have to hold the baby in such a small enclouser? Thats good that they dont hurt too much when they bite ... but do they chomp down hard enough to draw blood? Am i able to feed it live pinkies and mice? About the tank. I have though about building one from woods, plexiglass, cage material because the spot where i want to put the tank is a unique shape. Thanks again and ill be sure to check out that book.
 
For poop size - the babies have little poop, adults have bigger poop. You don't need to have a tiny enclosure for hatchlings, for example, a 10 gallon tank might do. It's just because they're so small. A hatchling is generally too small to draw blood when it bites. The bigger ones can, but they rarely bite.

You can feed them live pinkies. Most people here think it's better to feed them frozen/thawed rodents because it's safer. Live mice (bigger than pinkies) can really harm a snake sometimes. Besides, the frozen mice are cheaper too.
 
oh ok thanks! BTW about building a custom enclosure .... what do you think? Do you think i should just buy one or do you think i would be able to build one. I think i would feel safer buying one so the snake cant escape. I was also thinkin that instead of buying a small tank for the baby just buy one that could house a adult but put in a divider to make it smaller? Thanks.
 
The divider would work fine. How confident do you feel about your ability to build the tank? Corns are great escape artists, so if you aren't sure, then you should probably buy one. Get a screen top for it, buy clips and weights to hold it down...
 
Well im not one to brag but im a very skilled builder for my age
(15). I build and race radio control cars, build scale models and my nono (nono mean grandpa ...in Italian ...im Italian) is VERY skilled with wood. So ill draw ups some plans and if that doesnt work ill just go to the local petco or herp shop and buy a tank.
 
oh i have one more question. How do snakes do with noise? I Play acoustic and electric guitar but i dont want to stress out my snake when i get it. Thanks
 
Snakes can't really hear much, but they can feel vibrations. Lots of bass sound can stress them out because of the magnitude of the vibrations. Playing a regular acoustic or electric guitar, as long as it's not at a tremendous volume, should be okay.
 
I tend to avoid playing any loud music within a day or two of feedings, just to be safe, but a little loud music, or a loud movie now and then doesn't seem to bother them.
 
oh ok thanks. My amp vibrates quite a bit. But i just put it on the couch in my room. Its very soft leather so it soaks up all the vibrating. Thanks for you help guys.
 
THANK YOU EVERYONE!

Your advice is helping me alot too, i cannot wait to get my Corn now! I am going away on thursday, to florida for 2 weeks, so will be getting it when i get back, What age do they need to be, before they can be sexed?

THANKS
 
???

surely not straight after birth i wouldn't have thought, both friends who i know who own corns, haven't had them sexed yet. and they have had them for a couple of months.
 
Yep, they can be sexed by probing or popping (by a qualified person - don't try it yourself) shortly after hatching. Maybe your friends just don't care too much about which sex their snakes are.
 
Well we sexed our babies after their first shed. We used the popping method and found 8 males and 3 females. This is when you gently pop out the hemipenes from the vent. (DON'T TRY IT IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!)
I have NO clue how to go about probing and no one I know has a set of probes so I'm just relying on that popping method and hoping that my female hatchling really is a female.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top