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My new corn snake

Forrest

Forrest

New member
My girlfriend has had a ball python over a year and she loves it. Yesterday, I picked up a couple cornsnakes from Petco. They both appear to be red amelnaistics. They're very young (about the size of a large earthworm) and quite friendly. Two things:

The employee at Petco suggested feeding them crickets when they're this young and I have put a few in the cage, with cricket food (hopefully to prevent the crickets from bugging the sleeping snakes). However, this morning, I've seen some online source say that infant mice should be used. Infant mice seem too big for these guys and I haven't seen them eat the crickets yet. What do you guys suggest?

Also, own of them has what appears to be a couple scales missing on the top of his/her head. They are a few scales toward the center from the eyes. They look like tan spots were a red scale would be and they are slightly sunken in. My girlfriend suspects it may have had a problem shedding. I realize that this may be difficult to diagnose, but in general, what would you guys say about such a wound/improper shedding spot on a young baby cornsnake. (I have a 15 day return on them.) If I did return this one, I am tempted to get a bloodred amelanistic ( http://www.cornsnakes.net/gallery.php3?id=62 ).

Thanks for any advice.
 
Also, I'm aware not to feed them while there is any bark bedding in the cage. Right now, the cage consists of a towel, a plastic cave, a heating pad, large water dish and a heating lamp.
 
Forrest said:
Also, I'm aware not to feed them while there is any bark bedding in the cage. Right now, the cage consists of a towel, a plastic cave, a heating pad, large water dish and a heating lamp.
Click to expand...


i dont know what to tell you about the scale, but i dont think you need both a heating pad and a heat lamp... your temps should be in the mid 80's during the day... i know a lot of people here use a heat pad bubt i was told that snakes can burn themselves on the heat pad because it is more difficult to feel the heat on their bellys, so they will sit on the pad too long... i have heard that thihs is both true and false... hope someone helps you soon...
 
welcome!

welcome to the forums! i just wanted to let you know the guy at the pet store's head is full of rocks! hatchlings eat baby mice. you'd be surprised at how much those little guys can stretch their mouths open! still, if you are worried about size, try to get day old pinkies. keep a few frozen ones in your freezer, and when its feeding day, put one in a ziplock and place it in a bowl of hot water to defrost and warm it. then put each snake in its own feeding container with its own mouse, stand back and enjoy the sight!
as for the missing scales thing... i dont know much about that.... i would wait until it sheds to see if it was just a couple of damaged scales. but if you want to return it within 15 days... idk.
good luck with your new kids! stopping at one or two is darn near impossible ive heard!
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :wavey:
I'll help as much as I can.
About the heat -
If the room they are in stays pretty warm, then you may not need any added heat at all, Sometimes my house gets chilly so I use under the tank heaters with a thermostat so it doesn't get to hot.
About food -
Don't try to feed them crickets. They probly won't eat them in any case. What you need are pinkies, teeny tiny new born mice. They'll be able to eat them even though it doesn't look like they will.
Scales -
I'm not sure, but if it doesn't look bloody or infected you might want to try putting some antibiotic ointment on it.

The Corn Snake Manual by Kathy and Bill Love is a great book for new corn snake owners. I've read mine to tatters lol. You also might want to try doing a serch. Just type in key words like feeding or injuries and it will show you posts that have talked about that already.

I hope I helped. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the advice you guys. I'll look into the pinkies and maybe getting rid of the heating pad. So, they will eat dead mice, eh? I've only seen my girlfriend's python eat live mice.

Also, just before anyone suggests this, I will probably be seperating them into two cages on Wednesday. I'm sure that for the time being, they'll be fine together because they are so young.
 
Forrest said:
My girlfriend has had a ball python over a year and she loves it. Yesterday, I picked up a couple cornsnakes from Petco. They both appear to be red amelnaistics. They're very young (about the size of a large earthworm) and quite friendly. Two things:

The employee at Petco suggested feeding them crickets when they're this young and I have put a few in the cage, with cricket food (hopefully to prevent the crickets from bugging the sleeping snakes). However, this morning, I've seen some online source say that infant mice should be used. Infant mice seem too big for these guys and I haven't seen them eat the crickets yet. What do you guys suggest?

Also, own of them has what appears to be a couple scales missing on the top of his/her head. They are a few scales toward the center from the eyes. They look like tan spots were a red scale would be and they are slightly sunken in. My girlfriend suspects it may have had a problem shedding. I realize that this may be difficult to diagnose, but in general, what would you guys say about such a wound/improper shedding spot on a young baby cornsnake. (I have a 15 day return on them.) If I did return this one, I am tempted to get a bloodred amelanistic ( http://www.cornsnakes.net/gallery.php3?id=62 ).

Thanks for any advice.
Click to expand...


Dear god, this is why I hate Petco.

Crickets are NOT corn snake food. They eat mice. Get some pinkies from Petco or another store, either live or frozen--doesn't matter. If you buy them frozen, you need to thaw them in warm/hot water. You'd be very surprised how big of a meal snakes can handle.

It either sounds like a wound that's healing, or a bad shed.

It's up to you on whether or not you want to return them or one, but I'd rather have a fully healthy snake over one with some potential problems.
 
I agree with you Joe, Petco is just horrible! Crickets? Are you kidding me?

Forrest,

If you need any help, you have come to the right place. There are a ton of great, knowledgeable people here on these forums. I would first suggest the search feature being that you can find some much info before posting a question. If you can not find what you are looking for, then you can post something on the message board.


As far as crickets go, they eat mice. If you decide to go to Petco, you can get either day old pinky's or buy frozen pinkys and thaw them out before feeding them. I suggest feeding F/T. But that is personal preference.

As far as the mark on his head, I would play it by year. I understand that you have a 15 day return policy, so I would wait until the last few days to see if it perhaps clears up a little. It might be nothing, but you just never know. Especially coming from a place that told you to feed the snakes crickets.

And lastly, it is totally up to you what you use for a heating source. I live in the Northeast and I use both a UTH and a heating light above the tanks. I also have a dimmer switch to control the UTH so it doesn't get too hot.

What type of temp gauge do you have?

And BTW, Welcome! :)
 
Don't listen to anything Petco employees tell you to do. As some people have already suggested, get The Cornsnake Manuel by Cathy Love. It has all the information you could need about feeding, breeding, morphs, and general care. You could get this at Petco and most other pet shops. This site is a great resource too.
 
Why the hell would a corn eat crickets? You have a better chance feeding strawberry and cut up pinkie parts to a leo than a corn eating crickets. I don't think a starving corn would eat crickets.
 
Hi Forrest,

I agree with the them, get your info from Kathy love book and the search section here but all so check out the archives at the bottom of this page.

I would also keep the (uth) under tank heat because the warmth from the bottom is better to help digest food, and I think that the heating lamp is just like dry hot air heat and will not help with this, but you need to control the uth by a dimmer switch homemade type as posted here or better yet a thermeter.
Adding a few paper towel above the uth helps prevents the snake from burns.
My snake dosen't burrow under where the uth is so I don't have this problem.
I would just read alot from this forum. lots and lots of good info here.

good luck :cheers:
 
Crickets are bad news for reptiles that aren't hungry or for those who don't eat crickets anyways (cornsnakes). I've heard some horror stories of crickets eating geckos eyes and so on and so on. I personally wouldn't put them anywhere near a hatchling. Everyone has given you great advice I just thought I would throw in my opinion. I use a UTH (under tank heater) it's a heating pad mad just for tanks, its the best way to go in my opinion but human heating pads arent made for this purpose so shell out the 20 bucks and get a uth.
 
Yeah, I had to take in some rescue geckos that had no toes whatsoever thanks to crickets. Anyway, crickets are very carnivorous, and will chew on anything. I used to have a pet black widow, she lived a long and happy life until I tried to feed a cricket to her. I came back to check on her, and there was a fat cricket, mowing down on what was left of her legs. :(

Anyway, the point is, never leave crickets in with your snakes. You probably got the idea already, but really they are dangerous.
 
So, they have been eating great. Willow eats perfectly normal, while Elektra is much more inclined to eat a pinkie from the rear and spend more time trying to figure out how to eat it. Elektra is smaller than Willow and most of the cornsnakes she was housed with at Petco. I'm a lot less likely to see Elektra exploring the cage, etc. I suspect she may feel intimidated, even though she is quite often found curled up with Willow (which I suspect is just the two sharing a certain hot spot/cool spot, etc.). I just put her in her own cage, as I've decided I don't want to attempt to house snakes together. [Plus she has that strange head scar/birth defect/shedding defect. (<-Although, I doubt she's old enough to have shed already.) Still, I like her head pattern because it's very bright red with a small bright white v shape.] I'll post pictures of them sometime.

Today at the crappy local pet store I never go to, I saw a posting for someone selling a $35 snow corn and I'm tempted to go check it out. I'll have to engage in the quarentine (sp) thing. :cool:
:)-offtopic The pet store is terrible because of the way they treat their reptiles, not because of their selection, etc. Once, my girlfriend held a ball python from there and it had mites. :puke01: Now, they have a young Leopard Gecko in a cage that had adults many months ago and the adult droppings are still all over the cage. So, I goto Petco, even though some of their employees are morons, I have found a couple reptile people who are informed.)
 
Everytime I've seen a snake eat (my corn or my girlfriend's ball python) they are quick to hide after eating. Yesterday, I split up my two young corns who had been together for about one month and feed them. The bigger one, Willow explored the cage extensively for some time, before going into her cave. (They have aspen that they burrow into, as well.) (Elektra was put in the new cage, not Willow.) This sounded like instances that others have mentioned about seperating snake, but I don't completely buy it because they were only together for a month (excluding the unknown time together at the pet store). I won't take much notice unless one of them doesn't eat.
 
bad pet stores

Yea some pet stores just dont take good care of their retiles. I stopped by petland the other day and they housed redtail boas with geckos? ihave never seen this before and figure u would run the risk of the boas eating the geckos
 
There are some smart cookies at Petco. Not everyone who works there is a reptile moron. Unfortunately, their own policies sometimes dictate the stupidity. Like putting crickets in with snakes. I think they just come along and put X number of crickets in each of those windowbox reptile enclosures each morning, no matter what animal is housed there. That's what I think happened to a snow baby that got its eyes sucked out at the Petco near me. But I also know a few of the people that work there genuinely strive to give the animals good care.
 
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