General

Stats

Housing

Secure Lid
Corn snakes are very good at escaping from their cages. If there is a way to get out, they will. This is easily solved by making sure your cage lid is hooked down, or your box lid is taped shut.

Hide Box
Cornsnakes like to hide and almost anything will please them. I have two types of hiding places for my snake. They are shredded paper on one end, and on the other a hide box. My hide box is just the cut off bottom of a yogurt container, with a little opening in the front. My corn seems to like both areas, but others may prefer one or the other. I've noticed they like hiding places with low celings.

Water Dish
Cornsnakes need water in their tank all the time. If it gets dry or soiled, it needs to be cleaned immediately. Water dishes come in handy during shedding, because the snake will submerge itself right before. Therefore, the dish should be big enough so the snake can submerge its whole body.

Bedding
Bedding for a cornsnake can be newspaper, aspen shavings, astro-turf, carpet, or papertowels. Gravel and sand are not good for bedding because they take moisture out of your snake's skin. Cedar shavings SHOULD NOT be used because they cause respiratory problems. Also, bedding from the forest or yard should not be used because it may cause respiratory or mite problems. If you buy bedding from a store, make sure it doesn't give off any dust. This too will cause breathing problems.

Temperature
There is a lot of controversy over whether or not your snake needs a temperature gradient. I've heard some experienced breeders say you don't need a temperature gradient, but the temperature should be constant. Fluxuating temperatures cause a high amount of stress for your snake. For babies, the temperature should be 80-85. Older snakes will do ok in 73-80 degrees. If you would like to provide a gradient, go ahead! The temps should be no more then 77-85 in the warm end and no less than 70-77 in the cool end. Snakes like to choose their own temperature. But, if you do, make sure to provide a hide box in both ends because shy snakes will stick with their hide box even if it is too hot.

Feeding

A healthy cornsnake diet consists of only mice. They get all the nutrition they need in a mouse. I feed my snake thawed pre-killed mice for two reasons. Live mice can do major damage to an unhungry snake, and pre-killed mice cost much less than live.

Thawing Frozen Food: Fuzzies, Hoppers, and Adults
I've heard many rumors going around that microwaving your snakes food can do harm to it. This is usually not possible, unless you actually cook the mouse. Snakes do not cope well with cooked food. To prevent this, I warm mine in the following manner. Note: this is the 'recepie' for the bigger mice, like fuzzies, hoppers, and adults. DO NOT microwave your pinkies. See the next subtitle on how to warm them.

Anyway, I first set my microwave on one of the lower settings, such as 'defrost'. Then I microwave for 5 seconds at a time, or until the tail begins to pop, pausing in between. I do this until the whole mouse is WARM to the touch, not steaming hot (yes, you have to touch it). In my microwave, in order to get the mouse evenly warmed, I have to turn it and you may have to also. I've had my snakes for a total of 10 months, and they are doing well. And remember, don't literally cook the mouse, just warm it. (All microwaved mice are pre-killed... Just in case you were wondering.)

Thawing Frozen Food: Pinkies
Thawing pinkies is much simpler than thawing larger mice. My way of thawing pinkies is directly out of the freezer, put the pinky (or pinkies) that you want warmed into a small ziplock bag and seal it. Then fill a cup with hot water (the hotter the better) and stick the plastic bag with the mice into it. Check every few minutes to see if they are warm and defrosted. Take the mice out of the bag (they will be a little soggy because the water that was melted had nowhere to go) and feed at will. This procedure prevents cooking the little pinks, which is very easy to do.

Babies
Baby cornsnakes have eyes bigger than their stomachs, and if you over feed them it will cause problems later in their life. So you should feed them about 2 pinkies every week after their first shed. If you are having problems with regurgitation, try raising the temperature. If this does not work, peirce the skull of the pinkie with a pin and squeeze out some blood. This will almost certainly work.

Juveniles
Juvenile snakes are snakes that are too big for pinkies, but too small for adult mice. The mice that are given to a juvenile are called fuzzies or hoppers (hoppers being bigger). The width of the mouse should be no bigger then the widest part in the snakes body. This will prevent the snake from regurgitating or the mouse from rotting in the snake's stomach because its not digesting fast enough. I skipped the fuzzies and went to hoppers for my snake, but I can see they are too big and am planning to go back down to fuzzies.

Adults
I've had no experience with an adult snake yet, but have collected some information. Adults should be fed adult mice once, twice, or even three times (depending on size) every 1 to 2 weeks. Remember to stay with pre-killed, because if your snake is left alone with an adult mouse and the snake won't eat it, the mouse could possibly kill the snake.

Exercise

Breeding