Corn snake care

Ariel

Arachnoprince
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Alright, so heres the deal...

I don't know if any of you recall my thread from a few months back where I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my sisters blizzard corn snake, and in the end we lost the snake. We're pretty sure we had the set up basically right, but we've got another one coming our way. We've already placed the order, but its going to be awhile 'till it gets here. We're getting it from Glades herp and he won't send it out until it's shed 6 times and eaten or something like that so the guy we're ordering it through (a client at the clinic who frequently orders from them, free shipping, yay) said it probably wouldn't arrive until june/july which is good, its my sisters birthday present and her birthday id July 18th. (however after just talking to my mom I found out its acctually going to be in next week...well...crap XD)

So the one we'd had before (a baby) was kept in a five gallon with peat moss substrate, two hides, a waterbowl big enough to soak in. and a heat emitter on one side. the temps were a gradient from 75-80F on the cool side to 90F on the hot side. He also had a propped up stick to climb on.

We don't quite know how large this one is going to be so we may end up using a 10g or a 20L, but I've got to make sure we get things right. (Even though we, and everyone we've talked to believed the set up we'd had was decent)

For an adult corn snake is a 20L sufficient? If not what would be a better choice? I think I've heard 40 breeders are good?

Was there anything about the set up we'd had in the first place wrong? What could we do to make it better?

This is also a question thats going to be relevant to our hognose as well since we're going to redo his 20L tank, what substrate is best? I think we want to go more for natural so we don't want to do newspaper or paper towels. We have a ton of peat moss, but would something else be better? Like aspen?
 

pearldrummer

Arachnosquire
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Jun 24, 2009
Messages
89
Alright, so heres the deal...

I don't know if any of you recall my thread from a few months back where I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my sisters blizzard corn snake, and in the end we lost the snake. We're pretty sure we had the set up basically right, but we've got another one coming our way. We've already placed the order, but its going to be awhile 'till it gets here. We're getting it from Glades herp and he won't send it out until it's shed 6 times and eaten or something like that so the guy we're ordering it through (a client at the clinic who frequently orders from them, free shipping, yay) said it probably wouldn't arrive until june/july which is good, its my sisters birthday present and her birthday id July 18th. (however after just talking to my mom I found out its acctually going to be in next week...well...crap XD)

So the one we'd had before (a baby) was kept in a five gallon with peat moss substrate, two hides, a waterbowl big enough to soak in. and a heat emitter on one side. the temps were a gradient from 75-80F on the cool side to 90F on the hot side. He also had a propped up stick to climb on.

We don't quite know how large this one is going to be so we may end up using a 10g or a 20L, but I've got to make sure we get things right. (Even though we, and everyone we've talked to believed the set up we'd had was decent)

For an adult corn snake is a 20L sufficient? If not what would be a better choice? I think I've heard 40 breeders are good?

Was there anything about the set up we'd had in the first place wrong? What could we do to make it better?

This is also a question thats going to be relevant to our hognose as well since we're going to redo his 20L tank, what substrate is best? I think we want to go more for natural so we don't want to do newspaper or paper towels. We have a ton of peat moss, but would something else be better? Like aspen?
Your setup sounds fine for an adult corn/king/milk a 20G long or at least something with similar dimensions would be best. For the baby a 10G might be good since it will grow into it fairly quickly if it isn't very big. For my colubrids I've exclusively used aspen bedding. My kings love it since they can burrow (provides lots of hiding areas) it is also very easy to maintain.

As for the temperatures 90 is a little high 80-85 is more than enough. What exactly is the heat emitter you are using? If it is a heat pad you might want to look into a rheostat of some sort since they can spike for no reason.
 

Mack&Cass

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All of our snakes are on aspen, except for our boa constrictor. Our colubrids love it. Our male corn and male mexican black kingsnake burrow through it all the time.

We have our male corn (he's only about 2.5') in a 20L and our adult female (she's about 5') in a 30gal.

I think your set up sounds just fine. Are you getting another blizzard corn, or another kind of morph?

Cass
 

Ariel

Arachnoprince
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Your setup sounds fine for an adult corn/king/milk a 20G long or at least something with similar dimensions would be best. For the baby a 10G might be good since it will grow into it fairly quickly if it isn't very big. For my colubrids I've exclusively used aspen bedding. My kings love it since they can burrow (provides lots of hiding areas) it is also very easy to maintain.

As for the temperatures 90 is a little high 80-85 is more than enough. What exactly is the heat emitter you are using? If it is a heat pad you might want to look into a rheostat of some sort since they can spike for no reason.
Alright thanks for the info, I'll look into Aspen then. As for as the heat goes, no we were using a non-light heat emitting bulb. we'll look into figuring out something to keep the temps a little lower.

All of our snakes are on aspen, except for our boa constrictor. Our colubrids love it. Our male corn and male mexican black kingsnake burrow through it all the time.

We have our male corn (he's only about 2.5') in a 20L and our adult female (she's about 5') in a 30gal.

I think your set up sounds just fine. Are you getting another blizzard corn, or another kind of morph?

Cass
Alright cool, thanks. :) And Yes we are getting another blizzard. My sister isn't a huge fan of the other morphs.
 

ShawnH

Arachnoknight
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Sep 23, 2007
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The shredded type of aspen works really well. All my snake bins have it and the front of the bin where I place food and water I leave the bottom bare. It's the unheated side of the cage also.

If you do not feed the snake inside it's enclosure then you have more options... but definately stay away from corn-cob and sand substrates (even calci-sand).
 

Ariel

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The shredded type of aspen works really well. All my snake bins have it and the front of the bin where I place food and water I leave the bottom bare. It's the unheated side of the cage also.

If you do not feed the snake inside it's enclosure then you have more options... but definately stay away from corn-cob and sand substrates (even calci-sand).
Ok. thanks. I think we'll go with aspen. :) Oh, and we don't use corn-cob or sand anyways. We had a bearded dragon that got blocked because we used sand. since then we haven't used it.
 

kupo969

Arachnoangel
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Jul 20, 2007
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These animals are easy to care for and the previous posters gave good advice.

20L minimum for adults
I wouldn't use any sort fine substrate like soil, peat, or sand. Stick with news paper/paper towels/aspen/other paper product.
80-85 on the hot side. 90 is TOO hot for corns.
 

Cowin8579

Arachnoknight
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Jan 22, 2010
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Agreed. Cool down, repti bark works well, as long as when you feed it isn't in the chips.. so they don't eat it. Some corns get larger than others, so that will change things size wise.
 

Kirsten

Arachnoknight
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+1 on the aspen. My corn LOVES to burrow, especially just before a shed.
 

Ariel

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These animals are easy to care for and the previous posters gave good advice.

20L minimum for adults
I wouldn't use any sort fine substrate like soil, peat, or sand. Stick with news paper/paper towels/aspen/other paper product.
80-85 on the hot side. 90 is TOO hot for corns.
I could be wrong on that temps, it died in december. After checking back on my old thread, it was more around 80-85 degrees.

Agreed. Cool down, repti bark works well, as long as when you feed it isn't in the chips.. so they don't eat it. Some corns get larger than others, so that will change things size wise.
+1 on the aspen. My corn LOVES to burrow, especially just before a shed.
thanks for the info. :)

i dont use any heat on my colubrids. the temp stays around 75 though

Her room tends to drip on the cool side. so I think we'll stick to heating the enclosure.
 

ShawnH

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I don't even give my snakes hides, but I use a rack setup and it's already pretty dim. They usually just dig into the shredded aspen if they feel like hiding out. None of them seems to care about the lack of an actual plastic hide. In a glass tank setup a snake would more likely need a hide to feel safer.

I feed pretty heavily so I change the substrate almost weekly and do not offer food when the snake gets milky and a shed is evident. Also make sure to inspect the shed skin if you can to make sure that the eye lense has indeed come off on the shed or it can stick on the snake and cause issues.

As I said before try and feed only frozen thawed prey items. If the snake won't accept them and only eats live prey here is how I wean mine onto f/t...

First I get the snake used to eating two live prey items each feeding. You may have to offer smaller food to accomplish this. Once that's done I try and offer it one live prey item followed by a f/t one wiggled in my tongs. When it gets used to this you can usually get it on just f/t that you animate with tongs or long tweezers.
 

Ariel

Arachnoprince
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Aug 2, 2009
Messages
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I don't even give my snakes hides, but I use a rack setup and it's already pretty dim. They usually just dig into the shredded aspen if they feel like hiding out. None of them seems to care about the lack of an actual plastic hide. In a glass tank setup a snake would more likely need a hide to feel safer.

I feed pretty heavily so I change the substrate almost weekly and do not offer food when the snake gets milky and a shed is evident. Also make sure to inspect the shed skin if you can to make sure that the eye lense has indeed come off on the shed or it can stick on the snake and cause issues.

As I said before try and feed only frozen thawed prey items. If the snake won't accept them and only eats live prey here is how I wean mine onto f/t...

First I get the snake used to eating two live prey items each feeding. You may have to offer smaller food to accomplish this. Once that's done I try and offer it one live prey item followed by a f/t one wiggled in my tongs. When it gets used to this you can usually get it on just f/t that you animate with tongs or long tweezers.
the guy we're getting him from supposidly feeds F/T. And this won't be our first snake/reptile we'll know what to look for as far as a problematic shed. :) plus my moms a herp vet tech.

Thanks for all of the info. :)
 

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
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Dec 22, 2004
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Better late than never...

My input would be this:

Those are my two setups. One snake each, mum above, teenage "baby" below.


The tanks are each about 1m in length. In normal room temp you DON'T need any heed pads. Those are not tropical snakes! Their digestive system works best at around 73.4 F if one of my long dead corns has anything to contribute to this. He had very "sensitive" digestion and over the years that is what I discovered made the difference, the temperature. A hand full of degrees above or below that and he'd do the pukes.

I would not keep the tank moist but only moisten it prior to shedding. You get the rhythm of the snake eventually and can moisten it just by "instinct" or if you see what's going on. Too much moisture and you may risk giving the snake a respiratory infection. That is far from a sure thing, but since bone dry until shed works just perfectly, why risk it.

The length of the tank should at a minimum be 2/3 of the snake's length. A longer tank is obviously better. Two hides are optimal, but you should provide at least one, one that feels snug. Provide something robust to climb on as well as trying to get the substrate at least 4in deep. Corns love to both climb and dig. My substrate was 4in initially but has dried over time and thus compacted a little.

Don't feed in the tank unless you can guarantee 100% that no substrate will stick to the feeder mice at any time.

Good luck!
 
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