• 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.

Why do people worry so much?

How much time you spend on each snake also has a lot to do with how many snakes you have. There comes a point when you simply can’t take the time to record every tongue flick.

I record all my feedings because I can’t remember who ate last week. Even that isn’t really important until it becomes many weeks and we have established a pattern. If she hasn’t eaten for a month or 6 weeks, we need to start looking for reasons why.

You should see the records I keep on my mice. I can tell you weights of all the ages, I can tell you when the females become productive and when production drops off. I can tell you how many pinkies she will have during her first 6 months and how many of them she will raise to weanling age. I’ve done all of this because I enjoy it. I have developed a group of mice that are much more productive and better mothers than their parents were. It isn’t necessary for mice raising; it was just interesting to me.

I think it is fun to read some of the info on the Internet that is quoted as absolute gospel by some people. You must do this or your snake will die immediately. If they only knew what some of the big breeders were doing they would cringe. And only a fool would try to correct them.
 
I also try to do that with mice, if a female is a good mom and has big litters I make it a point to raise some of her babies when I need to start a new colony. If she continually eats her own or other females' pinkies, I cull that bloodline... Though the first time it happens I tend to think it's just inexperience. I actually think it would be great if you made a mouse breeding thread because you breed them in large numbers and probably could give people tons of good pointers.
I am not at all saying record keeping is bad. I keep records (OK not of the mice but I have a small enough number of those to keep them in my head) but yes snake records are essential to be a good keeper.
I suppose it's just not in my nature to be compulsive about them. :shrugs:
 
wade said:
If they only knew what some of the big breeders were doing they would cringe. And only a fool would try to correct them.
Click to expand...

Thats one of my biggest pet peeves. When someone says they would never buy from me because I said X or because I do X, my response, "if you only knew" if they only knew, they would most likely own no snakes at all.
 
Says the man who's hiding all his snakes from his wife! So...where do you hide them? Underwear drawer? Back of the closet? In your man cave, right??
Click to expand...

In her underwear drawer lol. I think she has caught on to my addiction. Hard to hide 21 corns now LOL
 
mike17l said:
Thats one of my biggest pet peeves. When someone says they would never buy from me because I said X or because I do X, my response, "if you only knew" if they only knew, they would most likely own no snakes at all.
Click to expand...
Preach it brother man, preach it!! :D

D80

PS. I think it was wholly appropriate for Jen to post this thread here. Think of the """newb""" responses if she'd have posted it elsewhere!! :eek1: You think the feeding and euthenizing threads went nuts . . .
 
The problem is if you try to correct someone they will think you're nuts or stupid.

It's ok to use Clorox to clean your cages. Ask all the mothers in the world that wash baby diapers in Clorox.

It's ok to feed dog food to mice. It has almost the exact same crude analysis as lab blocks. (red die excepted)

It's ok to use pine shavings. There has never been a study to the contrary. It's all Internet hype.

It’s ok to use tap water for your snakes. Do you really think Rich Z uses bottled water?

Now, go out and say all of that in public and see what happens. You’ll be shot and hung from a pole as a heretic.
 
To answer the original question, I guess the vast majority of Corn owners DON'T worry - and we never see them here because they never go looking for advice.

Corn Snakes are said to be the most popular pet reptile in the world (sorry, can't remember where I saw that quote) and we only see a tiny minority of owners on this board.

It's like a survey carried out by an AR organisation in the UK, that asked vets whether the majority of reptiles were sick in captivity. Of course, the answer came out "Yes". But that was because the vets only see sick (or potentially sick) reptiles!

Bottom line is that the majority of folks post here for the first time because they're concerned. But our majority is an overall minority when viewed as part of the whole Corn keeping community (if you see what I mean).
 
Lol, this thread cracked me up! The few times I only had a handful, I kept records, and used color coded stickers that meant everything you could imagine. I needed a chart to read my charts. I still use spring water though... and only track who bred who and when... Look, no writing callous or carpol tunnel... and I'm happy to say, I've never posted a, "Does this poop look right?", thread...
 
All I ask is if I ever have a thread that has seven pages, but nothing of importance was said, please smack me. Especially if if 27 of 61 posts were made by me, or my alter ego. You have my permission!
 
ghosthousecorns said:
Mathew, I agree we all were once newbies. But I dont remember ever being so obsessed with weights, poops, or feeding schedules. However I will say the first few years I bred corns I was as worried as a mother hen for every female that took longer than I thought she should to lay, and probably lost a few hairs!
Click to expand...

I don't for one second disagree that there are tooooo many of the same "OMG!!! My snake ate two days ago and hasn't pooped and then he crawled around his cage for three hours and didn't hide but when he did he didn't come out for the rest of the day...is he OK?!?!?" threads.

What really irks me are the repetitive threads started; even worst is when there are three threads on cohabitation or something on one page. Search people search!!!

Anyways, great thread!! Looks like there are several of us needing to do some venting!! :devil01:
 
I've sold all my boas or I'd put an 08 next to one of their accomplishments. A 3 pound rat can leave quite an impression.
 
Some time ago I started a thread that was making fun of silly posts in general. I thought it was funny. Boy let me tell you, I got some nubies really mad. They thought I was talking down to them and they were hot.

Not going to due that again. probably
 
For me keeping records is a nice part of the hobby,but becomes less and less important every year that passes.
Now worrying about the "small things",it's pretty typical I believe.
Sometimes I go back to some of my older threads and laugh at myself.Typical newb! (Not that I feel something more now... :D ) Even if I spent almost a year reading the archives before registering..
And I haven't forgotten how important those little buggers were and are for me.
As Bitsy said:
Bottom line is that the majority of folks post here for the first time because they're concerned.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top