snakepunk
New member
If order to cut back on my time in the snake room, I devised a system that splits all my snakes (currently around 100 or so) into 4 groups.
Each group gets checked (sheds, spot-cleaned & fresh water) every four days.
Smaller snakes get fed every four days; adult females every 8 days; and adult males every 16 days. This is really helpful in calculating how many and what size mice I need for a month. For example, if I have 50 adult males that are eating jumbo mice (decided by snake's weight), then I will need 100 jumbo mice for them .
Everyone gets new water bowls every 8 days (old ones put into dishwasher). Of course if they use their bowl for a toilet before then, they get a new bowl right away and that bowl isn't going into the dishwasher.
All cages get washed and disinfected (5% bleach) every 3 months . I also use newspaper so I can feed them in their cages. This saves a lot of time not having to place them in feeding containers like I would if I used aspen.
Note this only works (and has been for a couple of years) for cornsnakes, other ratsnakes, and gophersnakes . I have found that some of my other snakes, such as kingsnakes and especially garter snakes, have higher metabolisms (poop and eat more frequently). Most of these do better on the every four day feeding plan like my hatchling & yearling corns. My ball pythons (in my opinion, the most over-rated pet snake) however, do better on a plan similar to adult male corns.
Now instead of spending 4 hours or more each day in my snake room for daily maintenance, it's usually around 1-1.5 hours.
Each group gets checked (sheds, spot-cleaned & fresh water) every four days.
Smaller snakes get fed every four days; adult females every 8 days; and adult males every 16 days. This is really helpful in calculating how many and what size mice I need for a month. For example, if I have 50 adult males that are eating jumbo mice (decided by snake's weight), then I will need 100 jumbo mice for them .
Everyone gets new water bowls every 8 days (old ones put into dishwasher). Of course if they use their bowl for a toilet before then, they get a new bowl right away and that bowl isn't going into the dishwasher.
All cages get washed and disinfected (5% bleach) every 3 months . I also use newspaper so I can feed them in their cages. This saves a lot of time not having to place them in feeding containers like I would if I used aspen.
Note this only works (and has been for a couple of years) for cornsnakes, other ratsnakes, and gophersnakes . I have found that some of my other snakes, such as kingsnakes and especially garter snakes, have higher metabolisms (poop and eat more frequently). Most of these do better on the every four day feeding plan like my hatchling & yearling corns. My ball pythons (in my opinion, the most over-rated pet snake) however, do better on a plan similar to adult male corns.
Now instead of spending 4 hours or more each day in my snake room for daily maintenance, it's usually around 1-1.5 hours.
