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My first snake

natural-music

natural-music

Enjoy natures gift
Hi,
My name is Kenny. I'm from North Carolina and just today I purchased a corn snake. I have a 10 gallon tank for it (until it gets bigger). I made sure that it can stretch out all the way without hitting the tank walls. I gave it some natural logs after disinfecting them in the oven on 250 degrees for 45 mins, wrapped in tinfoil. It has two hide spots one on the cool side, one on the warm side. I used paper towels with no ink on them for the ground cover until I can get some reptile carpet or something. My question is the light requirements. I have a 60 watt incandescent on one side of the cage, will this really raise the temperature enough for my snake?? My house stays at a consistent temperature of 77 degrees. Unfortunately the lid I got for the tank wasn't very good, it doesn't lock and it barely fits!! I put some dictionaries on top of the lid and weights to make sure my snake doesn't try anything funny :p. Any suggests on things I should do to make my snake's new home better for it's sake? I say "it" because I currently don't know the sex of my snake. Im hoping for a vet visit in the near future.

Any information would be great! Thanks Alot!
 
The best way to know if it puts off enough heat is to take the temperature (at the substrate level). You can purchase thermometers to stay in the tank or actually take the temperature of the substrate. Unless you are monitoring the temperature on both sides you can't be sure if your warm and cool sides are actually warm or cool :) Otherwise, reptile carpet is easy to cleanup, but doesn't give your little guy/gal the chance to burrow so you might want to consider aspen or coconut bark. Especially while they're settling in they may want to hide out for a while and it could be less stressful if burrowing was possible....BUT it's ok either way!
 
Try a red light you can get them at pet shops, it will put out heat and not give the snake a feeling of day. The warm side needs to be between 80-85 and cool 70-75 this can be achieved with a red light. Aspen is a good bedding (coconut bark stays to wet) or Carefresh also works. While snakes self regulate thier temp they need taht gradient heat, most need the warm side to digest (but thier is always one who will not go to warm side). Good luck post pics, susan
 
Susang -

I want to make sure we're talking about the same kind of coconut bark. What I use is actually chuncks of coconut husk. It doesn't seem to retain much, if any, moisture at all. Are you talking about coconut fiber (the grainy style)?
 
Thanks for the advice! I'm going to gather up some money and invest in some aspen bedding. How deep should the bedding be? Yeah my snake is pretty shy right now, but I know it'll take time. I think I'm going to take my snake out of the cage to exercise and roam (while supervised of course in a bacteria free environment :p ) on Sunday.
 
nlove_3000 said:
Susang -

I want to make sure we're talking about the same kind of coconut bark. What I use is actually chuncks of coconut husk. It doesn't seem to retain much, if any, moisture at all. Are you talking about coconut fiber (the grainy style)?
Click to expand...

Oops, I thought you were talking about the stuff you have to soak in water. I will say the chunk stuff looks good but they can't burrow in it like they can the aspen or carefresh.
 
I agree it's not as easy, but these little boogers found a way. I like the aspen I have in the adults tanks better. I originally bought the coconut husk because it looked good....then went through some "forest floor" that I let air out a bit. The forest floor looks great and once it airs out isn't too moist, but it's get my guys all dirty and dingy looking! I feel like they need a bath. I use carefresh for all of my rats and hadn't thought about it's use with the snakes. I think I'll be trying that out ;)
 
I like the carefresh a lot but it has gone up in price. It is hard for me to find aspen except in small bags, and ahad a friend using Carefresh for her snakes so I gave it a try, works good. The only thing is it is dry so I put moist hides in when they are getting ready to shed. I also have a couple vivs withmised aspen and Carefresh and that also works well. The one time I used the chunk I got like little fruit flies in the viv, although I really like the way it looks.
 
I haven't had that trouble yet, but I'm a few minutes away from Seattle - so when rain season starts here in a week or two I'll keep an extra eye on it.
 
I'll put in my 2 cents. I use reptibark, my snake likes to bury himself in it. I just take him out and put him in a sterilite container to feed so he doesn't swallow it. I use a 60 watt ceramic heat emiter. It keeps his warm side at about 84 degrees. I like it because the tank is in my bedroom, so there is no light to disturb mine or his sleep.
 
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