Tag: snake

Corn Snake Care Sheet

shadythetortie:

There’s been alot of asks going around lately (especially over at @wheremyscalesslither and I think @tailsandco) looking for corn snake care and such, so to ease up some of the pressure, I figured I’d share my own care sheet.

Corn snakes are some of the best starter snakes to get, especially for teenagers or young adults. They’re easy to take care of, easily handled and often aren’t that aggressive. Not to mention they come in dozens of colours and patterns. There are too many colours to list, so you’ll have to ask whoever you’re getting the snake form the specifics, if you want to know.

Fun facts:

  • Their scientific name is Pantherophis guttatus
  • Corn snakes can live up to 20 years or more!
  • They often get from 4 to 6 feet in length, with males being the larger.
  • They are solitary, and do not do well housed together.
  • They are escape artists!! If there’s a way out, they will find it.
  • Corn snakes come in so many colors, it’s easy to find one you love!

Before you even get your snake, you’re going to need a few things.

Tank

  • Hatchlings and young snakes can do well in something as small as a 10 gallon tank, but adults will need a 20-40 gallon long tank. Corn snakes do better in tanks that are longer rather than taller.
  • You will need a secure locking lid. Corn snakes are escape artists – NEVER DOUBT THEIR ABILITY TO GET OUT OF A TANK. If there is a space, they will find it.
  • You want your tank to be big enough so that your snake, fully stretched out, will take up less than the length of one side and half of the other.

What you’re going to need for your tank:

Something to place it on

  • You want it to be strong enough to support your tank and everything in it.

Substrate

  • DO NOT USE SAND
  • Reptibark is great for corn snakes.

Hides

  • Be creative! You can even make your own.
  • Have at least two hides – one on the warm end, and one on the cool. The more, the better!

Water bowl

  • Your water bowl should be big enough for the snake to sit in. Fresh water should be available at all times.

Heat sources

  • One side of your tank will be your ‘cool’ side, and the other your ‘warm’ side. This means that whatever you use for a heat source, keep it to one side of the tank. Snakes regulate their temperature with their environment, so it’s good to have a variation.
  • Heat pads and heat lamps are great for corns. Make sure to give them a 12 hour daylight cycle. Heat lamps will project light (even the night time ones) so during the night use a heat pad or a ceramic emitter.

Thermometer/Hydrometer

  • You want two thermometers – one on the cool side, and one on the warm side.
  • Warm side should be around 80-85 degrees (26 – 30°C)
  • Cool side should be around 70-75 degrees (21 – 24°C)
  • Humidity should be around 40-50% across the tank. You can increase this by misting your tank during shedding to help your snake get its shed off, or giving your snake a ‘moist’ hide. More will be explained in the ‘Shedding’ section.

Decorations

  • This is the fun part! Time to decorate your tank. You want plenty of dĂ©cor. Snakes love feeling hidden and safe, and even if it seems weird, you’ll see your snake out and about more if they have more places to hide.
  • Branches are a great thing to have.

Honestly, just have fun with your tank. You want it to be something that’s functional, that your snake will be comfortable in, but at the same time you want something that’s nice to look at! Make sure to spot clean your tank every day, and do a full clean every month.

Food

Corn snakes, like all snakes, are carnivores. Hatchlings will eat pinkies (newborn mice), while adults may eat multiple fully grown mice. We recommend you feed your corn snake every 5 days for younger snakes, and every 7 to 10 days for adults. Your prey item should not be any larger than 1.5x the width of your snake’s head. Buy frozen mice from your local pet store. When it’s time for feeding, take out what you want to feed and place it in a plastic baggie in warm water until thawed.

You may choose to feed your snake in its tank, or in a separate bin. Place the mouse in the feeding area and introduce your snake to it. You may have to move the mouse with a snake hook or feeding tongs, or hold the mouse by its tail for the snake to strike at. Do not use your hand.

If your snake doesn’t want to eat, you can try ‘braining’ the mouse – slicing its head open so that some of the brain matter appears. This will increase the scent and hopefully entice your snake. You can also try reheating the mouse in warm water if it seems too cold. If this doesn’t work, try again 2 to 3 days later.

We do not advise feeding live prey. Live mice can injure your snake leading to serious medical problems, and are generally not easy to get every week unless you breed them yourself.

Do not handle your snake for 2-3 days after feeding to prevent digestion problems or regurgitation.

Handling

Once you have your snake at home in its new tank, let it adjust for a few days before trying to handle it. When you do, don’t be surprised if it’s nervous. You’re new to it, and it will take a few sessions of being handled for it to get used to you. Using a snake hook to lift your snake out of its tank or wearing gloves are great ways to start out if you’re nervous about reaching in. Daily handling of your snake will help it calm down and get used to you, reducing aggression and the risk of being bitten.

When handling your snake, keep your hands relaxed. Don’t grab your snake. Scoop your hand under its side and support its body to pick it up. Corn snakes aren’t generally aggressive, but they will strike if you startle them, so keep your movements calm and slow. Try not to grab at its head. If it’s heading somewhere you don’t want it to, gently redirect it by moving its body away.

Corn snakes do not like to sit still. They love to explore new things, so be prepared to keep an eye on your scaly friend at all times!

Shedding

Shedding is an essential part of every snake’s life. Snakes shed their skin all in one piece when they outgrow it, starting at the head and essentially turning it inside out. As your snake gets ready to shed, its eyes will turn blue and its body will dull in colour, and it will often stay hidden for a few days. They can’t see very well at all in this stage, so your snake will be nervous, and possibly strike if startled. It’s best to leave them be. After a few days, your snake’s eyes will clear up, meaning it is about to shed.

To help your snake along, mist the tank daily to up the humidity. You can offer a moist hide – sometimes something as simple as an empty butter container with damp paper towel will do. You can also use moss (not from outside – from a pet store) to place in it.

Sometimes giving it a bath will help too. Fill a container with enough lukewarm water to just barely cover your snake, and gently let your snake run through the water and your fingers. Be careful to keep it from putting its head under. Sometimes they’ll drink their bath water, and that’s okay. If they poop, clean out the container and use fresh water.

Your snake should shed within the next few days once its eyes clear up again. If it doesn’t, give it baths each day and let it run through your fingers to help loosen the old skin. This also helps if your snake sheds in pieces and you need to get the rest off. Never pull at the shed – let it come off on its own. Make sure your snake completely sheds its eye caps and its tail tip with each shed.

Veterinary Care

Snakes, like any other animal, can get sick. If your snake:

  • gets lethargic/listless
  • starts getting discharge from its nostrils or vent
  • sounds like it is breathing funny
  • stops eating over several weeks or regurgitates several meals,

–Bring it to a veterinarian. They will help you to get your snake better, and they want what’s best for your snake as much as you do. Make sure to choose a vet that has dealt with snakes before, and knows what they’re doing.

These are just the basics of owning your first corn snake. There are many more things you can learn, and we always recommend doing your own research before getting any kind of animal.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can always send me an ask and I’d be happy to help.

the-long-dog:

squeedge:

sunfish-exotics:

kaijutegu:

I was really into the signs all over ReptileFest- they all sent home messages of responsibility and the actual challenges of owning different species. Very refreshing- you never see stuff like this at breeder shows (because they want everyone to buy things)!

This is so amazing!

This is so inspiring and incredible and I’d love to see something like this brought to the Pacific northwest! God I’d honestly work so hard to make something like this happen.

Or to the expos that are established here already. There’s definitely educational opportunities and information available, but it’s overshadowed by the ‘spectacle’ of the trade and the majority of the info you’ll find is centered around breeders.

I’m with you. Even the nearby Herpetological Societies boths don’t look anything like this.

Source: kaijutegu

A word about oxytocin

highfemmeservicetop:

the-awkward-turt:

It happens a lot in Reptiblr that someone uses “reptiles don’t produce oxytocin” as evidence that reptiles do not experience social bonding or love.

Here’s the thing though: There are some reptiles that do forge cooperative, long-lasting social bonds and they do so in the absence of oxytocin production.

Something is motivating these animals to protect their young (ex. crocodiles), seek out their siblings to bask with (ex. rattlesnakes), stay with one mate for many years or for life (ex. shingleback skinks), or form family groups and adopt unrelated youngsters (ex. monkey tailed skinks) and it isn’t oxytocin.

Essentially oxytocin is not necessary for the formation of all social bonds in the animal kingdom. In fact birds don’t even produce oxytocin, they produce their own homologous “version” of bonding hormone called mesotocin. And reptiles have an equivalent hormone called arginine-vasotocin that regulates things like egg laying (which is why vets sometimes administer oxytocin to egg-bound reptiles to induce laying).

The argument that most reptiles are not social (or at the very least not cooperative) and experience stress when being cohabbed is totally sound and I am not in any way critiquing that argument. Just wanted to point out that using the “they don’t produce oxytocin” as evidence is a bit mammal-centric and not really definitive proof.

Reptiles, including birds, produce an analogous hormone called mesotocin, and fish have their own version called isotocin.

There’s more in this article linked and quoted below, which I highly recommend reading if you’re at all interested in the topic (the article linked is actually about fish and isotocin):

If there’s any molecule that is consistently viewed through
rose-tinted glasses, it’s oxytocin. This simple hormone has earned
misleading but charmingly alliterative nicknames like “hug hormone”,
“cuddle chemical” and “moral molecule”. Writers love to claim, to the point of absurdity, that oxytocin increases trust, generosity, cooperation and empathy, among a slew of other virtues.

But while these grandiose claims take centre-stage, a lot of careful science plods on in the background.
And it shows that oxytocin affects our social interactions in both
positive and negative ways, depending on the situation we’re in, or our
personality and disposition. It can fuel conformity as well as trust,
envy as well as generosity, and favouritism as well as cooperation. If
we sniff the stuff, we might, for example, become more cooperative towards people we know, but less so towards strangers.

Basically, the long and short of it is that all these hormones do is drive the seeking of social interaction, and are more generalised social substances than positive ones. They can fuel negative and aggressive and hostile interactions as much as positive ones, so they should not be used as evidence of anything other than social behaviour existing.

littlezoo-blog:

tailsandco:

dapperpets:

zipline-ejaculating-vigilante:

dapperpets:

ask-henry-yugi-tudor:

dapperpets:

graemoon:

dapperpets:

dapperpets:

Witness me, a professional, wildly cackling as I let my friend try to input data with this angry noodle on my computer

THIS WAS AT LIKE 600 NOTES YESTERDAY WHAT HAPPENED

We saw the angry noodle. We liked the angry noodle. Does the angry noodle have a name?

Angry noodle is a lab noodle it’s name is a very long sequence of numbers and I can’t remember which one this one is

why do snakes throw a fit? 😼
like

if you feed them and give them everything they need but they still don’t thrust you?

is it because they’re
 too wild still? O.O

Snakes don’t really have the capacity to bond some just tolerate better than others, young corn snakes tend to be pretty bitey and these hatched recently

These snakes are taken from the wild (well they were hatched in lab but their eggs were taken) and they will be put back when we’re done with them so we don’t necessarily want them to trust us, the more aggressive snakes tend to be more likely to survive

honestly the snakes aren’t being mean they just feel threatened by us and are trying to defend themselves so we really only handle them when it’s necessary

So wait
 all these Snake parents on here, they don’t actually have a bond with their pets?

No, snakes brains don’t produce oxytocin, as a snake parent it’s important to love and respect your animal for what it is. Personally I don’t see it as a negative, it’s just different and I think it makes them interesting.

Well, they don’t have a bond like you would to your dogs, cats, or other mammals, but snakes do have the capacity to recognize and, well. Stress less in the hand of a familiar person as opposed to someone new. While being handled is no snake’s favorite thing, they can acknowledge that they know you based on scent and temperature, and come to “trust” that, well. They don’t need to bite you, like this. Some are incredibly placid and never so much as flinch when they’re captive bred and raised, like my Clementine who doesn’t so much as bat an eye at me doing things in her home or reaching over her, or you can have anxious snakes like my Alphie, who become very “attached” to their One Person and everyone- everything- else is very frightening. He is very good at showing off the classic ball python ball, and when stressed, has no fear striking at spooky things, and flinches a lot.

So, no, the bond isn’t the same, but reptiles and other animals definitely “bond” more than given credit for.

I work at a small reptile zoo and when I’m letting kids handle a few of the reptiles, the ball pythons and even the bearded dragons try to get back to me because they recognize me and can feel that I’m safer than the kid trying to hold them for the first time

May i ask what the problem with feeding a snake in their enclosure is? i’ve recently seen some talkin it and it doesn’t make much sense to me. i myself do not own snakes nor have i ever, but i’m definitely an admirer

omg-snakes:

Hi there!

There are some schools of thought that suggest that feeding a snake in their enclosure promotes cage aggression or stronger feeding responses. There are also concerns that a snake may refuse food if they’re in too large a space or that they may accidentally ingest substrate, or that in their enclosure it may be more difficult to observe and confirm that they have successfully eaten.

I personally have not seen any evidence to suggest that enclosure feeding causes or contributes directly to cage aggression,

but I also haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that feeding outside of the enclosure has any negative repercussions. 
I do feed my snakes in their enclosures, but it’s a personal choice to be determined by the keeper and either way has benefits and risks.

Snakes with appropriate enclosures that have adequate cover should not be insecure enough to refuse food and there are some precautions that can be taken to prevent substrate ingestion.
With my smaller snakes and those who are more likely to rub their prey into the substrate, I feed in areas of the enclosure that are without substrate, such as basking ledges, or on a wide shallow dish or in a deli cup, paper lunch bag, or small tub with the lid left off.
Most snakes acclimate quickly to understand that the cup/tub/bag means it is Food Time and they are more likely to accept alternative prey on the first offer because if it’s in the food place then it must be food.

TL;DR: In or out of the cage is fine, as long as you’re feeding your snakes.

vetstudentlive:

exotic-venom:

(Dispholidus typus) Boomslang

This venomous colubrid ranges from varied earthtones to green to gray or black with yellow and sometimes blue markings. Scientists cannot understand why this animal tends to go completely melanistic  when it enters captivity, nor have they been able to figure out how to reverse this process. 

Only monovalent antivenin is effective for bites of this species and it is very expensive (R10 000 last I heard). Quite a few vials are needed. Venom causes uncontrollable haemorrhage. Not even blood transfusions help.

Source: exotic-venom

snakeoftheday:

Todays Snake Is:

The Boomslang (Dispholidus typus) is a highly venomous snake found in sub-Saharan Africa. This normally placid species spends nearly all of its time in the trees hunting for birds, small reptiles, and other prey. While vipers use syringe-like fangs to inject venom, boomslangs and other venomous colubrids instead rely on grooved teeth at the back of the jaw. to do so.

(x)