Corn snake *tank upgrade plans 4/23/15*

[CallaLily]

My husband is taking in a corn snake from one of his coworkers that can no longer care for her. I'm sure some has changed in the years since we had one and I'm a bit rusty on their needs, so I'm doing some research. I decided to post here just for suggestions on websites, forums, books, etc. I'd also love to hear about or see pics of people's setups. Anyone using bins or is a glass aquarium the only option? Apparently the poor dear is still crammed into a 10-15 gallon tank and they say she's around 4 feet long.

They've had her for a year and they said the people that had her before them had her for 3 months. I feel bad she's been passed around so much so I'm happy we can give her a "forever home". They've been feeding her live and if memory serves me right, frozen/thawed is the better option. Any tips on transitioning her to frozen/thawed?

Thank you.

[wodesorel]

Congrats!! I know you're going to love her. Can't wait to see pics!

My King is about that size and I have him in a very trashy 55 gallon so he can completely stretch out. I think minimum recommendations at most snake forums are for something that is half the length of the snake, but keep in mind these are recommendations from mainly breeders who need to be able to house dozens of snakes. At the very least it needs to be able to have a hot side with a UTH underneath that the snake can fit on top of and a cool side that's about 10 degrees lower.

You can certainly do a bin if you prefer, but keep in mind that they are escape artists and can get through really narrow places. I think that's why glass is so often recommended, since there are clips for the screen lids that make them pretty much snakeproof. If you're going to go with a plastic bin get one that has good latches and using velcro straps all the way around would probably not be a bad idea. Stan tries constantly to get out, and it took one time for him to learn that if I'm in the room the lid comes off so when he sees me walk in he heads for the top of the tank.

I've never done the transition from live to f/t, but it would be good to at least try. At her age it may be a battle or she may not have a problem with it. If she has a good feeding response you might get lucky just by dry defrosting - put it in a plastic bag and put the bag into warm water - and then drag it with tongs to make it look like it's moving. (Have it brush the end of her tail, not her near her head.) I read that some snake owners have to break out the hair drier to make sure the fur is completely dry and that it's warm enough before their snakes will even look at it. It may take some time (weeks between meals) and she may have to be really really hungry before she makes a move. It's really up to you if you want to go through all that. A hungry snake is not often a pleasant snake! But once she breaks into f/t then she should stick with it, so it's a one-time chore.

Do you have a place to get food for her? I think that can be the hardest part of owning a snake. Not all pet stores will sell feeders or have frozen on hand. When the local shop is out we go without until they get another shipment in. I've been keeping at least an extra on hand in the freezer (not something I thought I would ever do) at all times just in case.

And it is really really really common for snakes to get moved around like this. They're not attachement pets and keepers get bored with having the same ones and want to try something different. It's easy to trade them or sell them for the same amount you paid, so the likelihood of a snake having a single owner it's entire life seems to be really rare. I read through snake forums a lot these days and it really seems like most of the serious herpers tend to keep a snake for year or two and then trade it for something different - especially if they're trying to breed for certain colors.

I will put a quick thumbs up for the hide boxes from Reptile Basics. I ordered two after the Exoterra stuff exploded on me when I tried to wash the snake poop off. Really heavy duty plastic, nice construction. Glad I splurged on them. Stan takes a large box although it is a little big for him. I think the medium would have been too small though.

[CallaLily]

Thank you for all the info! I was concerned about escapes with the bin. I'm leaning towards that until Petco has their dollar per gallon sale when we'll get a 55. I just don't want to leave her in that tiny tank. They do sell frozen mice at a Petsmart in Dover....at least they did. I'll definitely ask my husband to stop in and check! There's a few other pet stores close by that I'll check out too. I'm embarrassed that I didn't think to check that hadn't changed!!
It makes me sad when I hear of pets being passed around like collector items.
I'll definitely look into those hides. I have a large water dish but I'm not sure if it's big enough. They should be able to lie in it completely right?

[wodesorel]

If the 55 isn't for display, check around on craigslist and yard sales, especially this time of year. The one he's in was $15. It's horrible and chipped but usable. Cracked tanks are great for snakes since there is no weight to what they need. The lid is used and I think I paid $5 for it. Took it in the backyard, went to town with a wire brush and green spray paint (it was all we had on hand) to cover the rust and flaking paint. Even the UTH is a free-bee Flukers that came with a hermit crab adoption. (Okay, so I bought a brand new one since I needed two UTHs - one for the Teeny Tank and one for the Snake Tank but the new one ran too hot for the snake but was perfect for the crabs so I swapped them.)

Yes about the bowl. I started with everything Exoterra including their largest reptile water dish but the paint came off the bowl and it smelled like epoxy so I returned it and am now using an 88 cent plastic shoebox and LOVE IT. It's the perfect size for him to lay in, and there's no spills. It was either that or a big ceramic dog bowl.

Something to think about too is cleaning. Cleanliness is important and I know a lot of keepers prefer something they can empty out and then easily wash and bleach on a regular basis. I've washed the 55 once in three months and I may not ever do it again if I can help it. I can sort of get it in the shower and wash it down and get it back on the roller cart by myself, but it's just too much! Instead I clean it in place with a mini-broom and dustpan to empty the bedding out and then vinegar to scrub it all down and then wipe that up with paper towels. I'm honestly not sure if that's enough in terms of cleaning. I do wash everything else that's in there almost every week as he tends to like to go from the second levels, smears on the glass get wiped with vinegar, and the bedding gets spot cleaned every day and then changed completely every 3 weeks or when I can't stand it. For bedding I've pretty much decided on 2/3 Forest Floor and 1/3 cocofiber, which does a great job containing water waste, gives him something to bury in and doesn't exactly break the bank. (I buy big in bulk.)

Definitely functional over fancy, but it works. And while I was told that they are not arboreal, he uses every inch of everything in there!

[CallaLily]

I think it looks good! Is that green thing a Tupperware turned humid hide? What are the stands made from? I wonder if a corn would make use of all the height too?
I do have a spare UTH, I'll just need to get a thermostat because it does heat up to around 100F.
I hate bleach but I'll use it if I absolutely have to. I prefer cleaning the gecko tanks with vinegar...I know it's not as effective as bleach but I hope it's enough for general cleaning.
Do you feed in a separate container?

[wodesorel]

He had a really bad first shed so I added a humid hide (I call it a moss pit ) and he uses it constantly so I never took it back out. I really need to get him something better than that - it's a small litterbox with a lid to one of the green containers that's in the crab tank, but it's what I had on hand. He likes the opaque bottom and it's hard to find a storage container that small that isn't clear.

For moss I started off with the good stuff, but Forest Moss molded and the Sphagnum Moss compacted under his weight and since he likes to poop in there it was getting to expensive to replace all the time, so I bought a cheap pack of the stuff from Home Depot that says it's for plants and reptiles. It works great! And it's only like $4 something for a nice sized bag. It has a lot of twigs in it, so it stays fluffy and lets him tunnel. Would probably never use it for the crabs, though.

I do feed in a separate container. I had a spare 7 gallon latchable lid Sterlite that I had been using for the roaches, and it already had screening put in. He knows what the bin is and when he sees it he goes into feeding frenzy mode. (I had no idea before this that snakes were that intelligent. He learns things the first time. It's kind of scary.) It doesn't take much - I have to dump him in and get my hands out of the way or he'll strike, and as soon as dinner is a foot above the bin he nabs it. I latch him in and walk away for about an hour. With the right sized dinner it takes him about five minutes to eat and then he can sit and digest a bit before getting lifted up. He pees every time he eats now, so that saves me a cleaning as well!

This last feeding was a comedy of errors what with him being in blue (three days before shed) and me trying to put the rat in and then him for the first time since we normally do it the other way around. Anyway, it turned out the rat was way too big this time but he got to it before I could react. It took him 2 hours and 20 minutes to swallow it. He would not give up. If I tried to check on him he rattled his tail at me. It was terrifying to watch because there is a serious risk of injury when they do something that stupid, but he is okay, it's been a week and he's already ready for another meal. >< Corns are supposed to be so much easier. I don't think they're such bottomless pits and they'll refuse anything too big.

[CallaLily]

After he's eaten and digests a while, is he calmer when you go to move him back to the tank?

That does sound scary! I'm glad he was able to get it down ok.

[randoswife]

I had a ball python once and I fed her in a separate container. I used a big tote I already had and left her for about an hour before putting her back in her tank. It worked well for us. I think the theory was that if you don't feed them in their tank, then they won't associate you getting in there to change water etc with feeding time.

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[CallaLily]

Thank you. Definitely sounds like the way to go. I admit I'm a little jumpy when it comes to being bitten.

[wodesorel]

I originally did it for neatness sake. With f/t there can be... accidents... involving water soaked rats. (They're sort of like water balloons.) If that ever happened in the container clean up would be a breeze. In his tank? EW. I also don't want to risk him ingesting the cypress bedding since it's chunky. I've chosen to go with one large meal for him which means he has to work for it a bit, and so he drags it around to straighten it out as he's swallowing and that would likely pick up a lot of substrate if he was in his tank. The more I learn about him though I'm glad I did use a tub from the start, and I've no doubt he would have immediately associated handling with dinner otherwise. I even do the tank cleaning while he's eating in his tub so that he doesn't associate water changes or anything else with dinner now. He just comes back to a clean tank and settles in.

And yes, the second he gets food he's back to normal happy piece-of-bread snake. There is a slight risk of them regurgitation after eating if it's not all the way settled in their stomach which is why the wait time is important so they can get it worked all the way down. It's also recommended to go 2 or 3 days without bothering them or handling them (past putting them back) to keep them from bringing it back up. They ditch the food to gross out predators and so they can be lighter and faster to get away, and they can learn fast that if they don't want picked up then bringing up dinner (or musking or biting or going bathroom) is the way to make that happen. I've never experienced it, but everything I read says that them getting sick is a thousand times worse then musking or pooing and you do not want to ever be in the room with it.

[randoswife]

I understand! those backward facing little teeth can be scary. In 3 years that I had her, she never bit me. I handled her daily and once when she got mites I sat with her in,the front porch with qtips and mineral oil doctoring her scales and she took it like a champ

I think you'll really enjoy it when you get comfortable. Snakes are cool

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[wodesorel]

I didn't think corns were known to bite? My pet shop lady never complains about them anyway.

She warned me that King bites will make ya scream. :covereyes: I don't want to ever find out. I guess Stan is a bit unusual in that he is so laid back for his species. All I could find when googling "Brooks King" was story after story of nasty snakes that bit hard, bit often, musked every time they were touched and were generally horrible pets. Given that we had paid for him and didn't pick him up for two weeks while we got his home set up I was so ready to ask for my money back! (And the one that took his cage at the store is a biter. I was looking at her because once you get the snake bug, and the store owner waved me off and told me not to consider it because of her personality.)

I admit I started out afraid of him, but now I trust him completely. I have no worries about him ever biting me other than that moment when he goes into the feeding bin, which would be instinct and an accident. Not that it would make it hurt any less!

[CallaLily]

They're supposedly pretty mellow snakes. I'm just jumpy over being bitten by anything really, not just snakes. Dogs, lizards, birds, horses, hamsters. Once I get to know them I'm usually ok. Except birds. I don't think I'll ever get used to them.

[happycrabbymama]

Congrats on the snake. We currently have 7 snakes; White-side Eastern Black Rat, Taiwan Beauty Rat Snake, Northern Pine, South Texas Bull and 3 normal corns. Everyone except our baby corns (which are about 8 months old now) are in 55g tanks. We did the same thing Wode did... Craigslist specials for stupid cheap. We have things for our snakes to climb on and they seem to use them, our snakes will go clear to the top of the tanks. So I wouldn't worry so much about having "unused" space. She will use it, maybe just not as often as you would like. She will be thankful to have all that EXTRA room to stretch out in!

We use clear plastic "shoe box" containers for the larger snakes and heavy ceramic dog bowls for the smaller snakes. We also use coconut hides (extras from crab keeping) for the smaller snakes. We use aspen shavings as bedding for our snakes *which they can use as cover as well as hollowed out log pieces, but only for our larger snakes.

We feed f/t for all of our snakes. At first our baby corns were eating live, but we buy frozen mice in bulk because its cheaper. So we switched them to f/t by tease feeding. We only had to do it a couple of times, but they took to it no problem, of course they are not as old as your snake, so... as Wode said, there are a lot of different ways you can do it.
As far as feedings go... we do in tank feeding. HOWEVER, we don't just open, toss and close. We are sort of "sneaky" about it. Our daughter is in charge of laying out the meals for everyone (well NOT everyone, just the snakes ). My husband gets each snake out and then leaves the room with them. While he has them out, he checks them over for any issues that we might now notice when they are in their tanks and then handles them for a bit. While he is doing that... that is where my job comes in. I go into the tat room and drop their meal in the tank, then I leave the room and my husband comes back. That way they aren't associating opening the tank with dinner time. They get to come out, be handled and then they have a nice surprise when they go back in the tat. We do this with ALL of our snakes and it seems to work out well. Then only time that this method of feeding is NOT used is when we know the snakes are getting ready to shed and they are not out and we KNOW they are hiding. For these times we simple open and drop, and wait. So far all of our snakes WILL eat even when they are super blue, even the babies.

Our corns have never attempted to bite. I wish we could say the same for a couple of our other snakes. Our Southern Texas Bull is EXTREMELY temperamental! Bull snakes are notorious for being "bad apples" when it comes to aggressive behavior. They look and act a lot like a rattle snake. For this reason wild Bull snakes are often killed do to mistaken identity. Norma Jean (bull) has bitten my husband on at least 4 occasions and she bluffs like crazy. I'll have to see if I can find a pic of her when she is being a psycho and post it. She is small, so, her bites are nothing and don't draw blood. She has actually struck at my husband and me more than she has actually connected. She strikes but hits with her nose not an open mouth. The only other time any of our snakes has tried to bite, we are pretty sure that the snake was sleeping when my husband reached in to take him out, and he didn't connect, just a strike. I am NOT a snake handler in my house! I like the idea of handling a snake more than I actually like it. I will hold the corns and our Northern Pine without to much issue.

I will try to get some pics uploaded so you can see some of the ones we have if you would like. We love to share and show them off. Again congrats!

[CallaLily]

Thank you for all the information! I'll definitely check Craigslist for deals. I'd love to see your snakes and setups if you want to share!

She was supposed to come home today but the guy was running late so didn't have time to bring her. Hopefully tomorrow.