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Mean corn snake

J

JKD1

New member
For the past month, our corn Dexter (approx 18 months, 32 inches, sex not tested but we refer to it as he) has become unbelievably angry and hostile. He will not let us take him out of his hide and once removed for feeding he becomes agitated and poses to strike. Tonight, while feeding him (he's on one hopper once every 5 days) he reacted to my shadow ( he also seems to dislike me mor than my boyfriend) and flattened and rattled at us. We covered his feeding box for safety his and ours (he has bitten the boyfriend once during handling) and when we tried to move his covered feeding box to his tank he jumped up and striked at us 3 times. We ended up having to put his entire feeding box into his tank because there was no other way.

He's been progressively worse every week for a month. In April we installed an under tank heater but it was insufficient to heat his tank. So we left the night uv lamp on all the time with it. That's the only change his environment. The ambient air temp on the warm side is around 80, it could b warmer under the substrate.

This cannot continue, if he does not improve we will be forced to give him away.

What can we do to figure out this sudden aggression?
 
I'm pretty sure he's not being 'mean', that's fear, he's afraid. It also sounds like you're not measuring the heat on the bottom of the tank? Air temp means nothing to corns, if your air temp is measuring at 80 and you have a light and an UTH chances are it's way too hot for him, which can cause 'mean' behavior from what I've read.

You need to get your hands on a prob thermometer and put the prob under the substrate against the glass at the center of the UTH, if it reads over 90 you can bet that's the cause of his aggression.

Note that this is just information I'm relaying which I've gotten from reading other threads.
 
Welcome to the bite club lol....

Don't take his crap... flatten your hand out(it is harder for him to bite and hold on) and go in and grab him. I would hold him 20 mins, 2 times a day, everyday(except the 24 hrs after feeding). He should settle down after a bit of handling. And dont worry, getting bit doesn't hurt, its the "OMG I just got bit" reaction that startles most people.
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The above information is correct. You need to measure the surface heat (on the glass) where the UTH is. You also need something like a thermostat or rheostat or dimmer switch to control the UTH and/or the heat lamp.

Too high temps = pissy snakes.
 
From what I've heard most all UTH's get TOO hot for corns, so that's more then likely your issue. Also I would get on it asap if I were you, temps too hot can burn or even kill corns.

Chances are once you get the temps right he'll calm down; and I wouldn't hold him too much, personally, for now, he's already probably pretty stressed out because he's too hot.
 
As above! High temperatures will most likely be the cause. You need a digital thermometer with probe, they sell them in most garden depts of stores, and measure the temperature on the surface next to the UTH. Unregulated UTH are usually far too hot, so you'll most likely need a thermostat to control it. UV isn't needed at all for corns either
(edited to add, I'd probably be mean as heck if I couldn't settle comfortably without being too hot, with lights in my eyes, being taken out of the hide I was trying to cool off in!)
 
Agree with all of the above advice about heating and lighting. A UTH is designd to heat the surface it contacts, not the air in the tank. If the air temp (irrelevent anyway as the snake isn't up in the air) is 80, then the floor surface will be much hotter. The floor at the warm end needs to be in the mid-80s and 90 at most. Most makes of UTH will easily hit 120 unless on a thermostat or dimmer.

Corns don't need UV, so that's likely to be an additional stressing factor. They're active at times or low or no light (dawn, dusk and overnight) so having it on at night will really be turning his system around.

Too hot on the floor (where the snake actually is) plus exposure to UV at a time when there would notmally be none - that's one highly stressed Corn.

It's not about "not taking his crap" - it's about getting your setup right. My bet is that he'll calm right down once he has cool enough temps and the ability to move around at night without exposure to UV.
 
So, no UV is needed at all? Just a heat lamp? Should we do a day and night one? Does the day one explicitly need to be none UV?

Also, we've unplugged the UTH, we cannot remove it until we can flip over the tank, which means waiting till rattle-hiss-hiss stops. I hope this works, it's terrifying to do anything for Dex with the way he's acting.

We must seem like terrible snake parents :(
 
I would completely ditch the lamp, those tend to dry out the air alot. And get a thermostat for the uth.
It sounds to me like he is way too hot as well.
 
Cornsnakes do not need lighting. What you need is a thermostat for the UTH to bring it down to the proper temp. Problem solved. You can also plug it into a lamp dimmer which is a rheostat, but you need to monitor the temps daily.

You really do not need to be terrified of him. He has tiny little teeth, not fangs. If he bites you, you have to worry more about jerking away and breaking his teeth than any damage to yourself.

If you want to handle him, put your palm down over him flat and just pick him up. He won't bite the hand that is holding him- he thinks he's hanging on to a tree. Then just let him relax! He's been successful so far at bluffing you into not handling him. It will be better for all involved if you overcome your fear of a bite and pick him up and let him regain his trust in you.
 
I'm a newbie but from my reading corn snakes don't need any sort of lamps. Lamp heat warns the air in the tank and less so the substrate. Ground heat is what corn snakes need to be able to regulate body temperature and digest food. The probe thermometer is very handy because the dial ones can be way of and they don't tell you substrate temp. Your snake also may need more handling add mentioned above. my caramel was very "mean" for the first couple months but after time and patience he's calmed down.
 
I'm a big fan of gloves when a Corn starts to get nippy. There's no way their teeth are big enough to get through gloves and it gives me (and therefore the snake) more confidence. It's usually only a temporary measure to cope with things like sheds.
 
You definitely need to be confident with him, if you need to wear gloves then do so, but if you're nervous he *will* be more likely to bite you. I know that from experience, I have a very mellow snake, but if I feel any kind of uncomfortable or nervous feelings when I have him out or when I'm going to get him out, he's much more flaky, he's never bitten me but he gets very jumpy.

If I have an "I don't care" attitude when handling him and kind of ignore his jumpiness, he calms down really fast.

As for the heating, I had my corn before I got my thermostat and this is what I did; I got a lamp with a red (night time) heat blub and kept it on the warm side (monitoring it with a PROB thermometer on top of the substrate, that is very important and easy to find) it never got much over 80 for me, so it was fine as a temp solution. Note that I also misted the cage pretty regularly to keep the humidity up at about 50% (do you have a hydrometer? I'd suggest one of those too, both the therm and the hydrometer are pretty cheap, around $10).

For the thermostat, I see you're in Canada too, and I pity you trying to find one in that case haha, they don't seem to sell them in Canada (hey if you can find one at a pet store or home depot or canadian tire that lets you plug things into it, great! But I couldn't, even though we looked around at all those stores). I got my Thermostat here they ship to Canada and with the second best available shipping it got here in about 5 days, which was great (I ordered it Sunday evening and it arrived on Thursday or Friday). It's worked fine for me so far and I've seen it recommended by other people as well.

Once you get the thermostat, turn the lamp off, put the thermometer over the UTH (along with the thermostat prob) and set the thermostat to an acceptable temp, I have mine set for 86 I believe? And it fluctuates between 84 and 88. Then you should be all set!

Personally, I wouldn't handle him until you have the temps all set up properly. I didn't feed Keo either until I had the thermostat all set up and what not. Everything went very smoothly for me, I hope it works out for you too!
 
We took his UTH out and removed the UV lamp, he's just under a heat lamp now. For the second day in a row he's let me handle him for 30mins at a time, no aggression. We haven't tried to feed him again, but so far it's looking so much better.

Thanks to all who helped us out!
 
As said multiple times earlier, you should ditch the heat lamp. Put the uth back in and get a thermostat for it. Corns need the 'belly' heat a uth provides. They do not need the warm air provided by a heat lamp.
 
JKD1 said:
We took his UTH out and removed the UV lamp, he's just under a heat lamp now. For the second day in a row he's let me handle him for 30mins at a time, no aggression. We haven't tried to feed him again, but so far it's looking so much better.

Thanks to all who helped us out!
Click to expand...

That's a great improvement!
 
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