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Questions from soon-to-be new snake owner

Katie

Katie

Crazy for Corns Member
Hi everyone, I'm going to look at my new snake tomorrow and should be bringing it home by next weekend. I have a couple of questions before I do though. Hoping you all could help me!

First: I know what my temps should be at hot and cool end but are these substrate temps. or ambient air temps.? If they are ambient air temps. how high should the substrate temp. be?

I'll be using paper towl as substrate for the first little bit till I make sure defectation and whatnot (no regurges,etc) are ok. I'll also have a UTH for heat. Is this ok? Haven't picked up the UTH yet but I think the brand is Repti-Therm. How big should it be? Should I be looking for certain heat or power output? Boyfriend is an electronics tech. and I'll be getting him to add a dimmer switch to it so I can turn it up or down. Sound good?

I have a lazer heat sensing gun (boyfriend uses it for working on cars) that is VERY accurate and I can check substrate temps. with that I think.

Second: I'll be looking at at least an hour and a half drive when I pick it up. Do I need to provide heat if I'm going that far or will he be ok without? (I live in NB, Canada. Temps here lately have been about 15-18 degrees in the afternoons). I could turn the car heater on or something maybe. Would this be enough?

Thanks for any help you can give!
 
Katie,
I assume your talking celcius--so around 59-64 degrees F, at that temp for an hour or so should not cause any problems. If kept at that temp all the time the snake will not be able to digest food. Corn snakes are very tolerent of variations in temperature, and a great snake to start with. I never really thought about substrates-so I went out with my thermal temp gun(mine has the laser on it too) and shot 10 different places in my herps room. The highest temp was 87 the lowest was 81. I shot the substrate, water bowl, and snake, The variation was 3 degrees between the 3. example: substrate-81 water-83 snake-84. this was consistent in the 5 trays that I shot. This was quite interesting as I never paid so close attention to temp. As long as the room was between 80-90 degrees I didn't worry. I use an indoor/outdoor thermometer I bought at Walmart. The outdoor probe is up high on the ceiling and I check it daily. I realize not everyone can devote a temp controlled room to there hobby-It took me 15 years to get to this point, however these temps have always worked for me. Sounds like you have done your homework on your new pet--so many people just buy one on impulse taking poor advise from a petstore clerk that is either sale happy or ignorant. Please feel free to lean on all of us for advice.

Best of Luck!
Matt L.
 
for the ride home just set your snakes container on your lap and it will be fine. Don't put it near a heater vent in the car- you'll cook the snake
 
I actually do have a room...

But it doubles as a computer room. Still, I plan on trying to keep it as temp controlled as I can.

And I didn't mean I was going to put the snake on the car heat vent! Lol. I meant I'd turn the heater on a bit if I thought it was too cold in the car without it.

Matt, thanks for the temp tips. I tried to do as much homework as I could before I got the little guy. I'll be looking at him tomorrow and going to pick him up sometime after Tues. (get paid tues. lol). I didn't really know much about snakes before so I figured I'd have to learn if I wanted him to live and be happy. I didn't realize just how much there was to learn at first though. I've been thinking about getting one for about 3 months now. Plenty of time to research.

I'm glad there are forums like this and like the one at kingsnake to help me out though. I only personally know a couple of people who keep corns so it's great to have so many people to turn to for advice. All you people who post replies to our newbie questions are so great! Thank you all from all us newbies!

I'm also a new member of a herp club in my province so that helps too. I'm getting the snake from another member actually.
Thanks again for all the help.

Katie
 
katie,
sounds like you have everything well under control! :) good luck with your new baby and keep us posted. be careful though, getting just one of these little guys is quite often the start of an uncontrollble urge to own every little slithery friend you can lay your hands on... ;) good luck, jim
 
Jim (and a lot of other people here..)

Ain't that the truth.
Good thing my mom is here to hold me down. ;)
Just wait till I get my own apartment at college.....(in like 5 years..oh the waiting!)
 
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