hmmmm, here's some reasons for easy care:
1) Adult cornsnakes eat 1-2 times a week (equalling roughly $1 - $0.25 worth of food, compare this to a $15 bag of dog food).
2) Cornsnakes have no fur, therefore no dander, therefore cause no allergies.
3) Cornsnakes eat little, so they poop very little, and you can hardly say that cornsnake poo smells half as bad as dog poo, or cat poo. In fact, you can barely even smell a cornsnake if you can smell it at all. Go to any snake keeper and try to smell his snakes, compare to dog/cat/rodent odors.
4) Cornsnakes are very cheap pets. Most domestic animals need very frequent vet visits and very expensive medicine and treatment. The most expensive thing a corn will ever cost you an operation running a couple hundred to clear an impaction(compare to couple thousand for doing a dog operation), and most of the time a cornsnake vet visit will cost you no more than $40, for talking to the vet and a fecal (compare to couple hundred for dog/cat, or other animal every year, to only if something goes wrong for a cornsnake).
5) Cornsnake's don't have many needs, all an adult cornsnake needs is about 2-3 square feet of space, a couple hides, clean water, a warm spot at roughly 85 deg (easily accomplished using any old spot lamp and 100 watt bulb), and some food once a week. Of course some enjoy a dip in the tub once in a while and the occasional vet visit doesn't hurt either.
6) Most cornsnakes have a very mild temper. They rarely bite or even rear up in a defensive posture against you (though the same can't be said for younger corns).
7) Corns don't bark or squeak or meow, they are very quiet. So you'll get some sleep at night and the neighbors won't complain.
8) Corns don't get huge like pythons or boas, they stay between 3-5 feet long, which puts them at a very good size. They're not fragile little snakes, nor are they overly powerful and huge.
9) Corns don't need much attention from you. In fact they can thrive well just being left completely alone with no human social contact. Dogs/Cats/Rodents and birds especially need social contact (either other dogs, cats, rodents or birds, or from humans), to thrive and to be emotionally and mentally healthy, while snakes don't. You don't have to worry about not playing with your snake for 2 months because you were absolutely swamped with work (though he might be a little less friendly when you finally come around to play with him).
And some facts about them:
1) Corns live for a very long time (could be good or bad). Alot of times they live for close to or over 20 years.
2) Corns come in more morphs than many other animals, giving you a huge number of options when looking for a corn.
3) Corns, and all snakes for that matter, smell using their forked tongues and an organ at the roof of their mouths calld the Jacobson's organ, which they stick the fork of their tongue into to analyze the contents that the tongue picked up.
4) Snakes shed their skin as they grow (dunno, this fact scares the heck outa some people).
5) Corns have smooth un-keeled scales, giving them an extremely smooth feel to them. Compare to gartersnakes or desert dwelling snakes (like rattlers), who have heavily keeled scales, giving them a sorta rough uneven feel.
6) Corns have single belly scutes (scales) up until their vent, and have double scutes afterwards. (I think this is the case for almost all snakes, but interesting nonetheless)
7) Corns, even though they are nocturnal, have round eyes. Most nocturnal species of animals generally have eliptical (slit-like) eyes. (I could be wrong here, but this is just one of my observations).
8) Corns are constrictors (yes, boas and pythons are not the only constrictors around). If you don't believe, you can try and handle my evil blizzard, Lillith. She loves tagging, coiling and constricting my wrist (I need to dunk her in a bucket of water to get her off).
9) Corns can be great climbers, wild corns will climb to tops of trees to pilfer birds's nests of their eggs, and some have been found in high cave ledges waiting for bats to fly by. They also swim rather well (I think most snakes can swim pretty well).
10) Corns and all snakes can unhinge their jaws to swallow impossibly large prey items.
and... I know I know more, but I can't think of anymore stuff without getting overly technical (snakes have a single functional lung, their left, the right one is very small and near useless). Well, hope that helps, if you need any more specific stuff, feel free to ask, if I don't know, some else definately will.
-13mur 6
