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Newbie w/ questions

David_F

David_F

New member
Hi everybody. I have a few questions that I was hoping I could get some help on. I'm fairly new to keeping snakes and glad I found this site. Now for the questions. :)

1. This past May I bought a snake that I was told is a corn x great plains rat snake cross. It looks like a pure g.p. rat to me though. Is there any way to prove that it is in fact a cross of the two species?

2. From searching this site I gather it's important to offer a hot and a cool side in the tank. How important is this? When I first started looking into getting a corn snake I was told they would do fine at room temperature. My snake has been doing fine as far as I can tell at just room temp but if it's going to help him out I'll supply extra heat.

3. Due to a changing work schedule I, unfortunately, slacked off on cage maintenance for about a month. I went through and did a full clean yesterday afternoon so it's nice and clean now. Since it had been a while since I'd changed substrate what are the chances of any type of bacteria or parasite build-up? Should I worry about having a fecal done to check for anything or just keep an eye on the snake for any signs of sickness?

Thanks for looking and thanks in advance for any advice.

Cheers,
David
 
1. I haven't a clue :)

2. I've been told the same about heating. However, once the weather outside gets colder, you won't have a constant temperature in your house. All summer I kept all of my snakes at room temperature because my room happened to be within their temperature range (towards the high end, at that). Now that it is getting colder, I have temperatures that are within the right range during the day and dip down at night. So, I keep them on heat to keep the temperature more constant. I'm not sure how cold Kansas is this time of year (I'm guessing pretty chilly?), but your snakes will probably not have high enough temperatures all the time. Plus, a gradient will help your snake find the perfect temperature, not just an acceptable one. This helps in digesting, keeping the snake from getting sick, etc.

3. Daily maintenence of the cage is important, but it doesn't take more than five minutes. All you need to do is spot clean any feces (what kinda of substrate are you using?) and give the snake clean water. Unless you are using paper towels, you don't have to change out all of the substrate all the time. You could go a month, as long as you spot clean every day. Sometimes bacteria and parasites can build up pretty quickly and others they don't, but snakes are amazingly tough. Just watch for signs of sickness.

Good luck with your snake!
 
Hey Flygning, thanks for the advice. I'll start using a lamp for heat. I sleep during the day so it shouldn't be a problem for me. I feel bad about not maintaining his tank as well as I should have but he seems to be okay. I'll keep an eye out for any problems.

Thanks again.

David
 
I can help ya out a bit on #1...G.P rats have been crossbred with amelanistic corns to create cross bred rat/corns carrying the amelanistic genes...The babies are bred together (or back to the amelanistic parent) to hatch out an amelanistic snake sold as the "creamscicle" corn...the normal looking crossbreeds are ocassionally seen for sale under the name "Rootbeer" corns...not knowing for sure, but (uh oh) I'm assuming that the babies would range from very corn snake looking to very G.P looking snakelings...The 3/4 corn 1/4 g.p. rats i received a few years ago from a breeder looked absolutely like normal corns...They were probably produced from an amel corn X "rootbeer" corn...
 
Thanks cka. He must be a rootbeer. I remember reading something about creamsicle corns but since he doesn't look like one I got a bit confused.

Thanks again,
David
 
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