Biting?

[francois]

Can Corns bite a person? I mean. do they often bite? I just wanted to know because someone told me her snake bit her. (I don't think it was a Corn)

Francois

 

[pdrau]

Corn snakes have been the number one beginner's snake for a long time. They are for the most part docile and don't have a tendency to bite. All snakes when feeling threatened, when in mid shed with cloudy eyes and can't see very well, when in feeding mode, or when your hands smell like their food may bite or at least strike. There are always exceptions to this rule and as you'll find on this forum there are corn snakes that people have that bite frequently. The two corn snakes that we have belong to my 8 year old daughter and neither of them has ever given any slight indication of an attempt to bite. She handles both of them without fear of being bitten.

Peter

 

[JaketheTick]

Right now I have five corn snakes. Only two of them have ever bitten me, one bit me once, the other, twice. All three bites were entirely my fault because I startled them. However, if you are going to work with reptiles, or animals period, getting bitten is just something you have to learn not to fear. I have never had a corn bite hard enough for it to even hurt an hour later or draw more than a pin prick of blood, catching your hand in a briar is twenty times worse. I was bitten by a thirteen foot burmese python once because I neglected to give it time to settle after eating. It left a bruise across the back of my hand and four of my fingers, and several marks that bled for a while. You should never be afraid of a corn snake biting you. If you are afraid, in my opinion, you're more likely to get bitten, and the shock that the snake actually bit you is ten times worse than the physical bite itself.

 

[jim]

corn hatchling vs. mosquito.... i think i'd rather be bitten by the corn....
adult corn vs. mouse.... i'd still rather be bitten by the corn
just to give you a frame of reference for how "bad" a corn snake bite is... ---jim

 

[pdrau]

I hate rodent bites, so I'm with Jim, although I've never been bitten by a corn, anything has to be better than a rodent bite.

Peter

 

[jersme]

I own several snake species. But the corns are the most docile and rarely bite. Alltough there is one corn who bites me all the time. He´s is the most agressive corn I´ve ever seen. But corn bites are never serious. It´s nothing compared with a bite from a big netpython I´ve just had, wich broke two of my fingers. I was feeding another python when it striked from behind my back and got the rat and my fingers.

Jersme

 

[JaketheTick]

Man, i thought my python bite was bad. I sure am glad that I got such a huge affinity for colubrids. Otherwise I'd end up with some serious injuries. I know a guy that had two of his fingers broken by a seven foot nile monitor. Corns are good enough for me.

 

[Susan]

I most definately prefer to be bitten by a corn than anything else, and I've been bitten by quite a few different species (mammal, reptile and bird). Of course, any rodent that dares to bite me never gets a chance to do it again...punishment is swift and my freezer gets another addition. Plus, I get great satisfaction in whacking the offending rodent! It makes up for all the times I couldn't give the same punishment to other biters. It wasn't fun when my son was about a year old and he decided to toddle quietly up behind me and try out his new teeth on my glutimus maximus!

 

[Matt L]

Almost all of the above

Well, I must say I have been bitten by quite a few different animals---6 foot nile monitor,15 foot burmese,horse,cockatoo, scorpion,dragon fly nymph(bad),dog,cat,rodents,various insects, cornsnake. I would rank them in that order. I'm sure I left out something very painfull that my memory has blocked. Note that the cornsnake is at the bottom of the list. Susan, I'm with you on the rodent thing-they seem to be my most frequent bite. I must say your one up on me--Never been bitten in the ars by a toddler. I'll bet that hurts, not to mention the embarrasment!

Matt L.

 

[Dean]

I must have been bitten at least 6 or seven times by my recently inherited corn, sometimes no bother at all, other times a nasty pasty. Never hurts, but she is very shy, I very rarely see her out of her hide, and if I do see her out she goes straight back in.

Regards.

Dean.

 

[Simon]

Don't worry getting a bite from a corn snake is really nothing. I have 15 here in London right now. I have been bitten around 5 to 10 times. But then all hatchlings bites......no adult bites. I handle them as much as I can. Right now only two of my 15 bites and they are the new corn snakes that I got from Rich.

If you really want to ask how bad a corn snake bite is, go to kingsnake.com/forum/corn and ask Marcel how bad a corn snake bite is compared to his python bite......the whole snake bite him and tried to constrict his hand.....

 

[LizS]

I've been bitten by piles of animals, including a horse who bit my butt when I was cleaning her rear hooves (I didn't see the humor at the time ). Got bit by a wild 3 ft iguana I had managed to catch in a tree (I grew up in the tropics) and that really hurt, it wouldn't let go and kept tightening its grip and I wouldn't let go of my prize. In the end I won and had an iguana for a few days till I got tired of it and let it go. Been bitten by a wild black rat I caught also, it bit through my fingernail to the bone. It hurt and bled like hell, but I hung on to the rat and kept it for a while. Been bitten by a large german shepherd and have the scars to show for it. Been bitten by cats, ducks, classmates (as a kid), parrots, crabs (the shellfish, not the insect ), bats, spiders, mice, chickens and a cow (cows don't bite, but my hand was in its mouth ). Of my 10 corns only one bit me once and it didn't hurt or draw blood. It was cute, actually.

 

[Iris]

Ouch! Liz, that's quite a few times you've been bitten.
I've been bitten by my budgerigar, my baby cousin and countless mosquitoes, but that's about it.

 

[jersme]

As you can read all animals can bite. So corns are no different.

 

[Celeste]

ive only been bitten by one young corn that wasnt even my own, and the i didnt even realize it was there until 3 days later. the things teeth werent even big enough to peirce the skin and cause bleeding! hav no fear, 4 corn snakes are pathetic biters

 

[st3v3]

The only snakes I've been bitten by were garter snakes. Once by a hatchling which actually drew blood and once by some freaky 5-6 foot garter snake(I'm still use to only seeing 2-3 foot garters) which didn't draw any blood. My corn took a couple strikes at me the other day but missed.

 

[Tim Madsen]

Wow someone out there is breeding some really nasty Cornsnakes. I've never been bitten by a Cornsnake, wish I could say that about the other snakes I breed. Cornsnakes are by far the most docile snake I've come across. Pacman frog now that's a nasty bit. IMHO

 

[SilverTongue]

I have never been bitten by my corn. I have been bitten by:
Dogs of all sizes only one has required stitches (on my butt)
Cats
Parrot
Mosquitos
rabbits
ferrits
hampsters
fish
spiders
ants
my brother
and the most painful would be my daughter when she was a baby at feeding time (if you know what I mean)

 

[Steve H]

I have only been bitten once.
I aquired an adult corn that had rarely ever been handled and stupid me touched him a little closer to his head than he liked
but it still was no big deal.

My baby corn is about as docile a pet as you can have. He has never even acted like he wanted to bite me.