First Corn Snake questions

[chid]

Hi all.
Just thought Id introduce myself. I have kept tarantulas for ages and have always wanted a corn snake . I have just bought myself a young corn snake, Its a july hatch and about 15" . I pick it up at the weekend. I have the Corn snake Manual that i have read but I have a couple of questions if anybody could help.


I have set a container up the same size as it is in in the shop and all is well with it. What is the largest size tank that I could put the snake in? As I dont want it to be to big for the snake.

I have my container in a 2 foot wooden viv that has a heatmat on the back wall that is used for my smaller Tarantulas. I have the corns container against the mat and the temps are ok. But everywhere I read they say use the mat under the tank. Is this because the snake needs belly heat or as long as the temps are ok does it matter that mine is on the wall?

Also what do you guys use for substrate, I thought I'd start with paper towels as it seems easiest?

Sorry for my newbie questions.

Thanks
Chid

[reverendsterlin]

they need belly heat to most efficiently regulate themselves. the skin and thin muscle allow heat to penetrate quickly and their core temps to reach proper levels. I doubt it will kill your animal but is not optimum. Paper towels are fine. For a July hatch it sounds small, my July babies are all about 23 inch+ and 45+grams eating small adult mice, I would get yours feeding on hoppers asap but thats just my opinion.

[sapphire_moon]

I agree with Rev. Belly heat would be great. You can put your baby in any size tank you want. BUT I say for every 1ft of space (you said he was 15 in right? try to put 2 hides (atleast one!) Plenty of foliag between the hides so he can go from hide to hide "without being seen". I use aspen shavings, they can burrogh *sp* in it and the tunnels usually stay pretty well. There is also paper, eco-earth, bed-a-beast, and many others that I'm sure people will respond with.

[Invictus]

I have pretty different theories than most people here, but this works for me.

Never worry about giving a corn snake too much space. They are curious and active creatures, and will use every single bit of space you give them.

Secondly, I disagree with giving them too many hides. It encourages shy behavior. Besides which, I have 5 '03 corns, and they almost never use their hide boxes. Corns are not as timid as other snakes, and will actually calm down much more quickly if they see you more often. If they are out in the open and you are in the room, they quickly learn that you are not a threat. Then they won't need to hide. My adult corns and many of my adult boas don't even have hide boxes, because they don't need them anymore, and don't use them anyway.

[bailey]

Well I have a question now. I have my baby's enclosures filled with stuff to make it more cozy and secure for them. I just got them Sunday. Should I remove the extra hide and some of their "toys" or leave the babes as they are until they are bigger.

[vanderkm]

I don't think there is a problem with providing 'stuff' in a corn's tank to give them places to explore and hide. The only limit is how much time you want to spend cleaning things. We use hiding spots for all our baby corns and the one they use most when very small is under the water dish. They do seem to like a tight space to curl up in and the dishes are partly over their heat source so they have a temperature choice under the dish. We use tubes that extend from the warm to the cool end of the tub and they use these a lot as they get older.

I agree with corns using lots of space if they are given it - we keep our adults in quite large cages, many with climbing branches and they use them a lot. We keep babies in smaller tubs because of the number we have - it makes it easier to know where they are when you are feeding and such. Also bigger cages are hard to keep as secure as small ones and baby corns can squeeze out of really small spaces.

I don't think having hiding places makes corns shy - of the 25 or so we have in tubs now ('03 babies), there is a lot of variation in temperament. Some are very confident, out all the time and climb out as soon as you open the tub, others tend to hide much of the time, but are still out cruising in the evening. I like to give them the choice of being seen or not and most of the younger ones prefer to drag their prey into their hides. I think they prefer the security when they are somewhat vulnerable when feeding.

Paper towel is a good bedding, easy to keep clean and we use it when they are very young, but the older ones mess it up too much and get it into the water dish so we use paper products like CareFresh now, although aspen shavings are good for them to burrow in too.

Congrats on your new snake - corns are addictive and it will likely be the first of many. Hope you can post photos.

mary v.

[MouseKilla]

It certainly does no harm to have all kinds of hides and furniture and junk in there at first till you can see what your little guy is like. After a while you can pull out some of the redundant stuff and just leave what he likes. For now just make sure the temps are where they should be and feed properly. The preferences of that individual snake will become obvious from it's behaviour. As long as you have the right conditions in the enclosure all the rest is more or less for your benefit, these snakes have pretty minimal needs.

[bailey]

I'm already seeing the different tempraments. At night my male is tearing around his cage smelling. Yet, I haven't seen the female out of a hide since she got here.