Corn Snake Care Sheet
by Wendy Henderson
Corn snakes are the most popular pet snakes kept in captivity today, and there are some very good reasons for that. They are available in countless beautiful color and pattern morphs and stay relatively small in size. Corns normally have a very mellow temperament, are harmless and easy to handle; even by children. They are highly recommended for beginners due to their mellow demeanor and ease of care. Corn snakes are very low maintenance pets and do not require feeding more than once a week, nor do they usually require live food. They are hypoallergenic, odorless and do not require cage cleaning as frequently as most other caged pets. With proper care, corn snakes can live over 20 years in captivity. This care sheet will discuss basic information about corn snakes and what you will need to know in order to get started with this rewarding hobby.
BACKGROUND
Corn snakes are nonvenomous colubrid snakes that are native the Southeastern United States. Their scientific name is Elaphae guttata, but they are also known as Pantherophis guttatus in more recent classifications. Corn snakes found in the wild, which are known as “normal” corn snakes, usually have red, black and yellow pigments. Their appearance varies somewhat with locality, and some of the well-known “normal” varieties include: Okeetee phase, Miami phase and Upper Keys corn snakes. Most of the fancy color and pattern morphs produced by captive breeders today are “designer” snakes, which cannot be found in the wild. Those morphs have been developed by breeders by selectively breeding the most outstanding specimens and by breeding for color and pattern mutations, which are primarily recessively inherited. Captive bred corn snakes are available in many colors, including various shades of red, orange, yellow, pink, white, black, gray, brown and lavender with various pattern morphs, including motley, striped, diffused (also known as “bloodred”) and zigzag.
HOUSING
Having the proper environment will help to ensure that your corn snake stays healthy. A typical enclosure for a corn snake is an aquarium-type glass tank with a very secure lid. Screen lids on fish tanks can be used, but they need to be secured with cage clips (available at pet stores) or at very least by placing something heavy on top of the lid, as snakes are very good escape artists. There are specially made glass terrariums for reptiles with sliding screen lids that click shut securely. A hatchling corn snake can easily thrive in a 2.5 to 5 gallon enclosure for the first year of its life. A 20 gallon tank should suffice for any adult corn. Corn snakes are unlikely to fight or cannibalize, so some keepers do house them together sometimes. However, there are some risks associated with housing multiple snakes in the same enclosure, such as increased stress, unintentional breeding and disease transmission. That is why it is considered ideal to house snakes individually. If you feel you must keep two corn snakes together, make sure they are about the same size and are fed separately. It is also a good precaution to quarentine any new animal that enters your collection for at least 3 months away from other reptiles and to monitor its behavior, feeding and stools closely.
The snake enclosure needs to have some kind of substrate, which is the stuff you put at the bottom of the cage. The number one substrate choice for most serious snake keepers is shredded or chipped aspen wood, which is nice-looking, inexpensive, absorbent and allows snakes to burrow. There are other bark-like products available at pet stores, which are especially for snakes, but they are generally more expensive than aspen. Make sure that you do not use cedar or pine chips as a substrate, because they can be toxic to snakes. Some keepers also use paper towels and newspaer as substrate. While these are not very attractive, they are inexpensive and make it easy to see the snake's stools.
Unless your home or reptile room is normally very warm (in the 75-85 degree range), your corn snake will need to have a heat source for its enclosure. This will help the snake to digest its food and regulate its body temperature. The best choice for corn snakes is an under tank heater, which is a flat stick-on pad that goes on one side of the bottom of the enclosure and plugs into the wall. If the under tank heater is too hot to touch with your hands, you probably to get a thermostat to control it. Cheaper alternatives are rheostats or lamp dimmers. The snake's hot spot should ideally be about 83 degrees, and the best way to measure that is with a temp gun. Basking lights are NOT necessary or recommended for corn snakes, because they tend to dry out the vivariaum, melt furnishiings and end up costing a lot of money to replace their expensive bulbs. Regular sunlight coming in from the window is fine for corns, but they really don't even need that to be healthy. It is best not to place their cage in a window or direct sunlight, as it might become too hot inside. Hot rocks are also not recommended for corn snakes, as they are known to become too hot and can severely burn and actually kill snakes.
In addition, your snake will need a water dish, and this should be placed on the cold side of the tank, so that it won’t evaporate too fast or facilitate bacteria growth. Dishes designed to fit into a corner are most space efficient. Snakes like to hide, so you will need to have at least one secure hiding structure in the cage; preferably on the warm side. Pet stores with reptile supplies sell many types of hides. Corn snakes seem to favor the ones that look like caves or trees with a hiding area on the bottom and branches on top where they can sit. Many corn snakes like to climb (especially when they are babies), so it is also nice if you can provide some natural or artificial climbing branches, as well as faux plants for their cage.
FEEDING
Corn snakes are usually very easy to feed. They get all of the nutrition that they need from eating rodents; usually mice but sometimes smaller rats when they get bigger. Baby corn snakes eat newborn baby mice, which are called “pinkies.” Some hatchlings require live pinkies for the first few feedings, but they normally convert to frozen/thawed pinkies (available in pet stores) after a few weeks. Most will actually eat frozen / thawed pinkies right away and never require any live meals. Feeding frozen / thawed prey is very convenient for the keeper and easier for those who are uncomfortable with feeding live animals. Baby snakes should be fed every five to seven days, and adult corns only need to eat one adult mouse about every ten to fourteen days, although weekly feedings can be continued if desired, and it is recommended that they do if the snake is a breeding female.
At feeding time, is usually best to remove your snake from its cage and feed it in a separate feeding container with a lid. Smaller snakes need smaller feeding containers in order to focus on their food. The eight-ounce deli cups that most hatchlings are shipped in (minus the substrate) make the perfect feeding container for little ones. Thoretically it is best to feed snakes in a separate feeding container, so that they will not learn to associate hands coming into the cage with something they should strike at. It will also prevent any feeding mess from ending up in the cage and the snake from ingesting any of its substrate. You may also find this to be a convenient time for you to spot-clean the cage and change out the water dish.
As far as rodent feeding size goes, the rule of thumb is to feed prey that is approximately the same girth as the snake and never more than one and one half times the girth of the snake. Usually two smaller prey items will be better tolerated than one larger one. Be very careful when increasing the size of your snake's meal, as drastic increases can lead to regurgitation. There is a well-known feeding plan for corn snakes, which is called the Munson Plan (see link at the bottom of this page). It involves weighing your snake and its food frequently with a gram scale. Some keepers find this plan to be overly aggressive and tedious with all the weighing involved, but it might be worth taking a look at. It is a plan for optimal growth and may not work for every keeper or every snake. It is perfectly fine to be more conservative and only feed young snakes once a week. Snakes do not need to eat every day, like most other pets. Overfeeding or feeding prey that is too big can be very dangerous for snakes and can result in regurgitation, which can be serious and sometimes fatal if it continues to happen after the initial regurgitation. If your snake does regurgitate a meal, do not attempt to feed it again for at least a week from the day it regurgitates and then give it a meal that is not more than half the size of the prey that it originally vomited. Assuming the snake tolerates that feeding, the next few meals should also be small. Don’t worry; the snake will not starve. They can actually go weeks to months without food, as long as water is available. Corn snakes do need to have water available at all times, and it needs to be changed out weekly or right away if the snake happens to defecate in it.
If you are feeding frozen / thawed rodents, it usually works best to warm (but not cook) the food in hot (but not boiling) water until its body is completely soft and pliable. Do not attempt to microwave it, because it will not heat evenly and may even cause a nasty explosion in your oven. Serve it warm. For stubborn feeders, you may need to poke a tiny hole in the top of the frozen / thawed rodent’s head (known as "braining") in order to better release its aroma. If feeding live, do not give wild-caught rodents, which are likely to have parasites. Baby snakes feed best in very small containers (with ventilated lids) and are usually more receptive to feeding in the evening. If the prey is frozen / thawed, the snake may or may not strike and constrict it. It will almost always eat the rodent head first, slowly working the prey down the length of its body. You will likely be able to see a food lump in your snake for a day or two, while it is digesting. After your snake has eaten, it is best not to handle it very much for couple days, while the food digests. Usually after two or three days, the snake will defecate. Normal corn snake stool looks a lot like bird feces, with dark and white components. The white part is comprised of urates.
CAGE MAINTENANCE
Cage maintenance for corn snakes is pretty easy. They only tend to defecate about as often as they eat. If you use aspen chips or some other scoopable substrate, all you need to do each week is scoop out and dispose of the little section where the stool is. Deep cleaning needs to be done at least four times per year. Since the under tank heaters is adhered to the bottom of the enclosure, it is best not to immerse the setup. It is also best not to clean the cage in or around the kitchen sink or around your own eating area. Reptiles can carry salmonella bacteria in their digestive tracts, which can make humans who ingest it sick. Although salmonella poisoning is very rarely associated with corn snakes, it doesn’t hurt to take precautions. The following steps will help you to effectively deep clean your snake enclosure: 1. Wear disposable gloves. 2. Remove the pet snake and all of the cage furnishings. 3. Scoop or dump out the old substrate and dispose of it. 4. Spray the inside of the tank with antibacterial spray or 10 percent bleach solution. 5. Wipe it out completely with paper towels until it is completely clean and dry. If there is any adhered stool on the glass or furnishings, an old toothbrush with cleaning solution will work well to loosen it. 6. Place new substrate in the cage and return the furnishings and your snake.
SHEDDING
As they grow and mature, snakes periodically shed their skin. Several days before shedding, your snake will take on a dull appearance, and its eyes may look cloudy and bluish. It is likely that the snake will be less active at this time and not want to eat. If it does eat, the food is more likely to be regurgitated, so it might be best to hold off on feeding until after the snake has shed or at least to feed something smaller if you do decide to feed. When it is time to shed, the snake will rub its face on something rough to loosen the skin and then attempt to crawl out of the skin, which will end up inside out and stretched out much longer than the snake actually is. Usually the skin will come off in one piece, but occasionally the snake will have some trouble and will retain part of the skin on its body.
If this is the case, there are some steps that can be taken. It usually works well to place the snake in a lidded plastic container with crumpled moist paper towels for an hour or two. Usually by that time, the snake will have completely worked the rest of the skin off. If there is a little bit still remaining, it should then be loose enough that you can gently work the rest of it off with a moist washcloth or paper towel. Alternately you can place the snake in a wet pillow case with open end secured for an hour or so, and the snake will probably have the remaining skin worked off off when you take it out. If your snake frequently has trouble shedding in one piece, you might want to set up a humidity chamber in the cage when you notice it is about to shed. This can be done by filling a lidded plastic container (with an entrance hole) with moist paper towel or sphagnum moss and placing it in the cage for the snake to hide in. When your snake has shed, make sure it has shed thoroughly. It is very common for them to retain a little bit of skin on the tip of the tail. However, if this is not removed it can result in tissue death to the tip of the tail, and the dead part will need to be carefully snipped off. It is not really harmful to the snake but can result in a slightly stubby tail.
If you are finding that your snake is having incomplete sheds, you may need to increase the humidity in your cage. This can be done in several ways: increasing the size of water bowl, placing an extra water bowl on the warm side of the cage, misting the cage daily with water, providing a moist hide or retaining more humidity by covering the screen top of the cage with something like plexiglass, a piece of pleather or perhaps plastic food wrap taped onto the bottom of the screen lid. Those are all options for increasing the humidity, but don't do them all, or your cage will become too humid, which would likely result in a mold problem. Ideally, you should keep the humidity inside the cage at 40-60%.
BREEDING
Breeding corn snakes can be very fun and rewarding with so many different morph possibilities. Because breeding is a very involved topic, it will not be covered fully in this care sheet, but I will recommend some good books (listed below), which cover the topic in depth. Breeding does require some planning ahead, and there are certain considerations that should be made before deciding to breed your corn snakes.
Breeding can be very taxing on the female snake’s body, and it can cause her to lose a lot of weight and face medical problems, such as eggbinding, which basically means that her eggs get stuck inside her, usually due to having a bad one that is too large. Unfortunately it is a common problem in captive bred snakes, and it can result in expensive vet bills, loss of the clutch, and worse yet… loss of the female. Once baby snakes do hatch, you may have to deal with occasional babies with deformities and babies that will not eat. Even when everything goes right, it is essential that you have the space, time and resources to support up to 25 additional snakes until you have found new homes for all of them.
Before breeding, you need to consider whether your snakes are ready. A female corn snake should be at least about three feet long before attempting to breed her, and that usually means that she is about three years old. Some very large two-year-olds will also breed. In any case, the female needs to be very well nourished and healthy before attempting to breed her. With males, the size and age is not so critical. It’s not going to hurt them to let them try breeding. Many of them will be sexually mature and interested in females by the time they are two years old, but their fertility probably won’t be as high as that of an older male.
In order to prepare their snakes for breeding, most breeders brumate (hibernate) their snakes for a good portion of the winter in anticipation of breeding. Brumation is actually not completely necessary for breeding corns, but it does seem to help make them breed more predictably. The actual breeding and egg laying will occur in the spring and summer months. A corn snake will sometimes lay two clutches per season, which is known as “double clutching.” A clutch of corn snakes generally ranges from 5-25 eggs per clutch. Most breeders invest in an incubator for their eggs. A chicken incubator from the feed store can work just fine for snake eggs as long as the temperature can be maintained in the mid eighty degree range and humidity can be maintained between 90 to 100%. The incubation period for corn snake is normally about eight weeks.
CONCLUSIONS
Once you get started raising corn snakes, it will be easy to understand why they are the number one pet snake kept in captivity. Their easy care requirements, smaller size, mellow demeanor and endless morph variety make them ideal pets for people of all ages and even for those with time, space and money constraints. This care sheet provides a general overview of what you need to know in order to care for a healthy corn snake. For those wishing to learn about medical issues, breeding, genetics or more in depth information on the topics covered in this care sheet, it is highly recommended that you invest in a corn snake book. Some popular corn snake book titles are listed below.
RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING:
Corn Snakes: The Comprehensive Owner’s Guide by Kathy and Bill Love
Corn Snakes in Captivity by Don Soderberg
The Cornsnake Morph Guide by Charles Pritzel
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