Ahh! Brand New Owner! And kinda frightened 0.o

[LucyferThomas]

Calling all snake owners!

Today me and my boyfriend are getting two corn snakes, a ghost corn snake and a grey one, they are both girls the ghost is called Crystal and the grey one is called Pandora, they are both 10 months old but i'm a little worried.

Since they are coming into a different house will they react differently towards me and my boyfriend? My boyfriend is terrified that he is going to get bit by one and he is convinced that their jaws lock when they bite, his brother owns two snakes (and is getting a 3rd), he is very good with them but he isn't really explaining alot to us about them.

I know that when you get a new baby corn snake you should leave it at least one weeks before you handle them, would this be the same with the 10 month old girls? or will they be okay to handle? since they were previously owned by a young boy i thought they would be fine to be handled straight away, or would they react different because its new people to adjust to?

I'm so worried that we are going to do something wrong and end up making one or both of them ill, we have been wanting a pet for a while and we were so excited when we found out we were getting the girls, please if anybody has any advice they would give us be more than welcome, we are going to need all the help we can get!

LucyferThomas.

 

[bitsy]

A week's peace and quiet for settling in is a good idea for new arrivals of any age.

If you read through the stickied FAQs at the tops of the various sectiond on this board, there will be some great starting out advice.

If you'd like good right-from-basics Corn Snake keeping books, then I can recommend "Corn Snakes: The Comprehensive Owner's Guide" by Kathy and Bill Love. Kathy's a member of this board. Don Soderberg has also written a book which is highly regarded called "Corn Snakes in Captivity". Both of these are available from Amazon in the UK.

I would say that the main tricks to starting out with Corns are:
- An escape-proof tank
- Lots of hides and ground cover so that they can stay out of sight and feel secure
- Correct temps. About mid-70sF at the cool side and mid-80sF on the warm side. You'll be surprised at how low a Corn likes the temps (below human core body temp) and any heat source, lamp or mat, will need to be used it with a thermostat to keep it low enough.
- A digital thermometer, to measure the temps on the floor surface, where the snake is. The cardboard strip or plastic dial type can be up to 20 degrees wrong in either direction (have seen this myself with my nephew's first setup).

Corns aren't usually inclined to bite as most quickly become used to being handled. Their teeth are only 2mm long as adults - a bite can draw a small trickle of blood but you won't be able to see anything an hour later. It might leave a small bruise but nothing worse. A bite-and-hang-on is usually a misfiring feeding reaction rather than a fear bite. To make an over-excited Corn let go of you, just run its head under a slow-running cold tap. The surprise makes them unhook of their own accord. Although as I've said, being bitten by a Corn is a pretty rare experience.

Good luck and welcome!

 

[LucyferThomas]

Thankyou so much!

I'm going to have to tell my boyfriend about the whole 'biting' thing, reassure him a bit

This has been such a great help thankyou!

LucyferThomas

 

[big chris]

You got some great advice there and were pointed in the right direction. From our experience as new corn owners we got our 3 babies in august they were july hatchlings and have had no bad experiences yet with the nipping issues that your boyfriend is worried about I get it though it was my biggest fear when we bought our first boas she got sick and had to be hand fed the got a bite in now and then they say the biggest thing is not to freak out and drop the snake easier said then done so I would make sure I was sitting on the bed with plenty of room for the snake to safely be dropped if it is to much of a shock as far as the pain its not bad its just a shock hey I just got bit and your automatic response should be to remove the threat just try to fight it. Anyways you did good finding this site we had a feeding issue where our baby snowy didn't eat for a month after her first feeding with us and the big pet store said well we would freeze it to put it out of it misery luckily we found a small pet store who deals almost exclusively with herps he turned us onto the site and just with time patience and a lil reading and talking on here she is a good eater and going from live to frozen thawed every other feeding and hopefully soon will be completely weaned of live mice. Anyways good luck try to find someone local maybe a herp club or atleast a good breeder or reptile pet shop for us we searched all over dallas fort worth which is like a 45 min drive and found one 5 minutes
from the house we never new was there so ask around

Best of luck

 

[AliCat37]

If for some reason you do get bitten.. it feels like a puff of air. I have one corn in my collection that bites every time I open his cage. You'll feel the teeth (it feels like the rough side of velcro!) so it doesn't hurt.

 

[schnebbles]

Ali - how old is your biter?

One of my babies tried biting at me, but I was trying to handle him too soon, he bit me several times and it didn't hurt. He quit that after I gave him his time to adjust. He escaped too and when I finally found him I thought he might bite, but I think he was glad to see me! I picked him right up.

Sissy men! lol!

I got a 1 year old a while ago and she has never, ever attempted to even consider biting. She is pretty mellow. She's my biggest snake.