What's involved-important-bad-good in keeping a corn snake?

Factual Questions
1

I met an incredibly cool snake today. I’ve met other snakes, appreciated them, but they didn’t move me. Something about this snake… I dunno. I just really like her a bunch. Her owner just takes her most everywhere he goes, she hangs out on his wrist or around his neck. I held her for about 10 minutes and I just loved it. She was so pretty and her skin felt so nice and something just clicked for me.

So what’s involved? I understand they can live about 20 years, they eat mice, they sometimes like to climb, they need to be kept warm…

Snake poo. I imagine carrying them around can find you with some snake poo on your clothes at times… is it predictable? (Mouse on Monday, poo on Wednesday) Is it messy? The whole waste and cleaning aspect is important, of course.

Also, I read up on a couple of websites, they called color varieties “morphs”?

Biting: I read they are very mellow temperament, which is why they are a great starter snake. But when they DO bite… is there something likely to trigger it? Do they have serious fangs? Do they have cooties in their mouths? (I think reptile bites, I go straight to komodo’s horrible bateria-laden lethal slime bite) Do they bite when hungry?

What’s involved in breeding? (Not that I’d do that, I’m just curious about captive snake breeding just cuz I’m curious!) Is there a season? The websites I saw seem to sell them like seeds “all sold out for 2010”.

I’ve never in my life considered keeping a reptile, so I’m low on information about it. I welcome the education.

Thanks.

2

Plenty of info here.
http://www.pet-care-portal.com/corn-snake.html

Good luck.

3

I worked with a corn snake at a game preserve about 10 years ago, and as far as snakes go, they are very gentle, tame creatures, and if I HAD to own a snake, it would be a corn snake. My experience with reptiles with this temperament is they only bite when shedding, mishandled, or sick.

The downside is you have to feed them mice, though you can buy frozen dead mice if the tragedy of a reptile swallowing a love mammal and slowly suffocating it to death is too much to bear for you. If there was any other way to feed these suckers, I’d buy one myself.

4

Corn snakes are probably the easiest reptiles to maintain healthily in captivity.

5

This is not the place to learn about corn snakes. Google corn snakes. There are hundreds of people on the web who have sites explaining everything you could possibly want to know about them.

6

Not to derail the thread (which I clicked on because I found it interesting), but couldn’t you say that about almost every single freaking thread we have? I just grabbed three random GQ threads and came up with this:

This is not the place to learn about quitting smoking. Google quitting smoking. There are hundreds of people on the web who have sites explaining everything you could possibly want to know about it.

This is not the place to learn about internet cafe pricing. Google internet cafes. There are hundreds of people on the web who have sites explaining everything you could possibly want to know about them.

This is not the place to learn about paving a driveway. Google driveway paving. There are hundreds of people on the web who have sites explaining everything you could possibly want to know about it.

7

Doctor Who, I think the problem is that it’s such a broad question that the answer would have to be a three or four page report… or a link to something already out there.

Anyway, I’m not sure how much pooping is covered out there, so some experiences of mine:

Since snakes only eat once a week or a couple of times a month, they obviously don’t poop all that often either. My snakes have usually done it about one week after they eat, but it’s not exactly predictable. I’ve never been pooped on, but my snakes have pooped on other people a couple of times. (Not sure why that is, but I know that my snakes definitely recognize me by scent).

If they do it in a cage, just make sure there’s some kind of absorbent material that you can take out. I use blank newsprint for my current snake. Some people swear by pine/cedar shavings or shredded paper, but others insist that accidental ingestion of these can cause intestinal blockages or other damage. Anyway, when the snake has done its business, just scoop it out, or replace the paper. They don’t pee like mammal pets, so cleanup is about as easy as could be.

8

I owned a corn snake, which I got from a friend who had a mated pair, and it was a great experience. When I got him he was about 18 inches long, when I had to get rid of him he was over 4 feet long.

I bred the mice I had to feed him, but that soon got out of hand - I wouldn’t recommend it. Since, like dracoi said, they only eat a few times a month and even less when they get older, it’s pretty easy to start getting overrun with mice.

When feeding, I usually gave him live mice, which I sprinkled with a vitamin supplement powder that I purchased from the pet store.

The tank I had him in was a 55 gallon rectangular aquarium with a screen lid. I used artificial turf on top of sand as the base. Also had some fake branches for climbing, I piece of bark thingy that he could crawl under, a water dish, and a heat lamp. I cleaned his tank about twice a month, and it could get funky within those two weeks. A strong ammonia smell as opposed to a fecal smell.

I got bit once when he was about 4 feet long. It was close to feeding time, so that may have had something to do with it. I reached in to hold him, and he slowly rose up to meet my hand, and then he lunged up and bit me on the palm of the hand (more precisely, his bottom jaw was biting my palm, and the top was biting the top of my hand). As I lifted my hand out of his tank, he was just hanging there from my hand. If I had to describe it, it felt like someone was pinching my palm with a pair of pliers that were wrapped in a coarse sandpaper. It drew blood, but just enough to dab up and it almost stopped immediately.

The only other experience I can comment on is when he got mites. I had to soak him in the bathtub with some type of medicine I got from the vet, and then pick the mites off I saw.

Other than that, he was pretty low maintenance. A heckuva lot easier than the tarantula I owned. Don’t get me started.

9

Does snake poop contain bits of undigested bone, the way owl pellets do?

10

Oh please! I’d love to know! I don’t want one of course, but I’m very curious. Since they DO bite and they DO have venom…why are tarantula people so mellow about handling them??

What do they need, what was the problem? I’d love to hear all about it.

11

How do you know they recognize you? Did you learn to understand what their emotional states were? Do you think they were in any way capable of forming any kind of attachment?

What did you enjoy about them?

(This is why I ask on the dope… pure facts I know I can gather easily. I’m looking for more personal experience type things in addition to less obvious details, like poop.)

12

My ex-roommate owns a corn snake, and I cared for it for about 6 months.

Biting: I don’t know whether she trained the snake out of it at youth, but the only times it came close to biting me were when I found it after it had been lost and starving and scared for 3 months, or when I was feeding it and accidentally got the smell of mouse on my fingers. In both cases I avoided getting nipped.

Feeding: Thawed dead mice are way, way easier than live mice, and the snake most likely will not notice.

Pooping: Usually happens 2-4 days after eating, sometimes twice. My roommate had trained the snake to poop in the tub while swimming, which made cleanup easy. Feces and urine come out at the same time, so it’s pretty wet and nasty.

Personality: I would never have believed that a reptile has personality, but that corn snake, at least, totally does. They can be playful and funny and very interesting; this particular snake has more personality than a couple cats I’ve known. And they do remember people; when I sent the snake back to my roommate who hadn’t seen it in a year, it immediately took to her like they’d never been separated.

13

How in god’s name do you do this? Any hints will do, I am without a notion.

This is exactly what I want to know more about… Can you try to be a little more specific about how this works? What does a playful snake do that tells you it’s playful? How do you know a snake “takes” to someone? Basically, how do you “read” it, absent overt actions like biting, hissing, snuggling, purring, growling, barking, whining, bumping your hand to make you pet it, and no eyebrows?

I’m not being a pain, I’m trying to understand, because I think I’d really like to get one and I’m such a dog person that I can’t imagine how to understand a snake, but I’d like to.

Do they have any kind of individual intelligence? I imagine so, if they can be trained to poo while swimming.

I’m fascinated.

14

I got my tarantula from the wild when I lived in New Mexico. I caught one during their yearly migration, and kept it in an aquarium. Fed it crickets mostly, and it’s water dish was a lid from a smallish butter tub.

They can bite, but their venom is low in toxicity; I’ve heard it compared to a bee or wasp sting. If you have an allergy, it can be bad, just like an allergy to bee or wasp stings. What you have to be careful of is the hairs on them. They’re bit like fiberglass and they can “throw” them at you with their back legs. They can irritate the skin, and if they get in your eyes I understand it can be pretty painful. I handled the tarantula I owned all the time. It never bit me, and never got me with it’s hairs.

The reason people have to be so mellow about holding them is mainly for two reasons: 1) they don’t want to piss of 'em off so they don’t get bit or hit with the hairs, and 2) they’re fragile as hell. Their abdomen is basically a huge water balloon and if dropped, they can pop.

Other than that, they’re pretty docile. I guess they’re just…boring. The snake definitely had more personality.

15

I asked, and apparently it wasn’t a deliberate training so much as something that just came about. The snake certainly enjoys swimming, and I imagine warm water feels comfortable. I think it’s more a case of the snake just getting exercise right when they’re ready to defecate; if I let the snake run around on my hands or bed, it’d poop there instead.

The body language is fairly expressive. It’ll play hide and seek when in the vivarium or twine itself around your hands and neck when playful, it’ll make eye contact, it can be very curious about the outside world (I might be holding the snake in my hand while walking past a picture on the wall and it’ll streeeeetch out to look at it and taste it, for example), and other things. It’ll coil when it’s scared, but unless you mistreat the snake that’s rare; the only time I ever saw it like that was when my cat discovered it in my kitchen after several months of being missing and it was starving and scared half to death.

The curiosity is probably the biggest thing. It’s neat, but it also turns the snake into an escape artist; if the vivarium isn’t properly secured, the snake will find a way out to go exploring.

16

I’d love to have one of these small snakes, but no snakes may be imported into this country. Some questions after a little googling:

It seems like the natural morph is reddish or brown. If I wanted a small ,non-venemous green or black snake what sorts could I get?

Could you take one out and let it explore a room without losing it? or even a lawn?

Ta,
Jaguars!, who lives in an opressively snake free country.

17

What’s small? Black Rat Snakes make decent pets and can get 8’ for a really uber-specimen, but I’ve personally never seen one longer than about 6’. Mexican Black Kingsnakes are a bit more shy, but also inoffensive, pretty in a glossy sort of way and a bit smaller, topping out at 4-5’.

I’ve owned both and would say the rat snake is a tad more entertaining, as they are more active climbers. But both are fairly easy to keep as snakes go.

I’m trying to think of beginner-level green snake ( at least a vividly green one ) and coming up blank. I’ve heard the little NA Smooth and Rough Green Snakes can be very slightly tricky sometimes.

Depends on the room. I wouldn’t, unless I was keeping a close eye on it - they aren’t that bright or have much owner loyalty.