Corn Snake Care Sheet
Name: Corn Snake, Red Rat Snake, Pantherophis guttatus guttatus Distribution: Southeastern and central Unites States. Their range begins in New Jersey and goes far south, even to the Keys in Florida. It goes as far west as Texas. They inhabit overgrown fields and often times abandoned sheds, barns, and log piles. Lifespan: 15-20 years or more in captivity. Adult Size: 4-5.5’ long. These are moderate sized snakes that don’t get very wide. Diet and Feeding Frequency: In the wild corn snakes are eating small lizards, rodents, and birds. Feed mice as a staple in captivity. As a general rule, feed a prey item that is at least the width of the snake at it’s widest part, and no more than 1 and a half times that width. It may seems big but snakes are designed to swallow their food whole. Food that is too large may be refused, or regurgitated.
Corn snakes eating mice of various sizes.
Rats can be offered as well, but keep in mind that they are higher in fat than mice and should be offered less often. An adult mouse is 23.6% fat and a rat of equal size is 27%. Corn snakes are generally excellent eaters, one reason they are so popular. It is highly recommended to invest in a digital kitchen scale for weighing your snake, especially if you have a hatchling. Weighing in grams is most common.
This is an excellent chart for feeding corn snakes, the Munsons Feeding Plan.
-When they’re on single pinks (2-3g), I feed every 5-6 days. (Snake = 4-15g) -Double pinks (3g x 2) every 5-6 days. (Snake = 16-23g) -Small fuzzies (5-7g) every 6-7 days. (Snake = 24-30g) -Regular fuzzies (7-9g) every 6-7 days (Snake = 30-50g) -Hoppers (9-12g) every 6-7 days (Snake = 51-90g) -Weaned (14-20g) every 7 days (Snake = 91-170g) -Adult (20-30g) every 7-x days (Snake = 170+) See below. Note: Adult females are fed more frequently than adult males (especially following brumation). Adult females are fed every 7-12 days; adult males are fed every 11-14 days. This is by no means scientific, and not all corns will cooperate 100% with the schedule. The weight ranges I gave for the prey and snakes are approximate.
Always feed prekilled (preferably frozen/thawed) food to your snake, if at all possible. Live food may harbor parasites and injure or even kill a snake. This is not unheard of and should be avoided. Live feeding is also extremely painful for the feeder animals, who’s rights should not be forgotten just because it is going to die at some point. So for the sake of all parties involved, feed frozen/thawed or freshly killed if you can. Snakes, Corn snakes in particular, only accept live food exclusively rarely. So if you have not tried feeding prekilled yet, give it a try. Maintenance Level: Easy, perfect beginner snake. Minimum Enclosure Size and Set Up: For hatchlings, smaller enclosures are actually recommended. Smaller set ups make it easier for the snake to find water, get to the heat source, and for you to control humidity. So for a hatchling something with the footprint of a standard 10 gallon aquarium is ideal. Adults should have a 20 gallon long or larger.
A 20gal long with a hide, water dish, secure lid, aspen shavings, climbing branch, and an under tank heater.
As with all snakes, having a secure enclosure is extremely important. There are terrariums specifically for snakes that come with a sliding locking screen lid that I recommend. You can also purchase display terrariums with glass doors on the front that also allow for viewing. Finally, they sell screen lids that fit on aquariums that you can lock with clips. Always use at least one clip per side, so at least four for a standard aquarium. NEVER rely on books or some other weight to keep a screen lid down. Do not count on your snake not being able to reach the top of the enclosure either. Snakes are very good at escaping and it is very important to take this part of getting a snake seriously.
A young corn snake displaying it’s miraculous climbing abilities!
Since corn snakes are largely terrestrial floor space is important. Choose an enclosure that is longer rather than tall. You can supply them with climbing branches or decor, but there is no guarantee that they will use it. Always provide them with at least one hide though more is always better. Hides can be made from almost anything and help the snake feel secure. Popular hide choices are cork bark, logs hollowed out and cut in half, commercial resin caves, cardboard boxes, PVC pipes, and various other commercial products. Be wary of using wood from outside as it may harbor pesticides or parasites.
The substrate has to be absorbent and non toxic. The best choices are aspen wood shavings, sani-chips, newspaper, butcher paper, paper towels, astro turf (a.k.a reptile carpet), cypress mulch, coconut shavings (eco-earth), and paper based bedding like care fresh. These all allow easy cleaning and are often readily available. Newspaper, paper towels, and butcher paper are the cheapest and most convenient, but lack aesthetic appeal. Aspen, sani-chips, and care fresh are all effective bedding that allow for natural burrowing behavior but are not naturalistic. Cypress mulch and coconut shavings are both natural and allow for burrowing, but often the most expensive choice. Absolutely never the following as bedding: Cedar and pine wood shavings, sand, corn cob, gravel or stones. Cedar and pine contain phenols that react with ammonia that give many animals respiratory infections as well as many reptile keepers claiming that the fumes can give them neurological problems as well. Sand, gravel, and stones are all abrasive dry substrates that can cause irritation to a corn snake. Rocks can also heat up and burn your snake. Corn cob bedding can dry out their skin and when moist is very prone to mold and fungus.
A corn snake exhibiting burrowing behavior. Water: The interior of the cage should have a water dish large enough for the snake to fit in. Some snakes like to soak and this should be available for them to do. It can also facilitate shedding. Try not to place the water dish over the warm side of the cage, this can cause it to evaporate quickly and increase humidity as well. Humidity Range: Corn snake are very tolerant of humidity but their ideal range is 50-60%. Temperature Range: Corn snakes, like all reptiles, need an external source of heat. They cannot regulate their body temperature on their own, their temperature depends on the temperature around them. Because of this we have to give our snakes a temperature gradient. This allows them to go from one side of the cage to the other to find their perfect temperature. On the warm side it should be 75-80F and the cool side shouldn’t dip below 65F. Since corn snakes do not bask it is common to use an under tank heater (UTH) for them. A UTH does not regulate it’s temperature, and unattended can easily burn your snake. Because of this, always use them in conjunction with a thermometer or a rheostat. A thermometer hooks up to the UTH and allows it to reach a temperature you set it to, based on the temperature it is reading. When it reaches this temperature or if it is already say 80F in the tank it turns the UTH off. This is very convenient but generally expensive. Rheostats are dimmers. You plug the UTH into it and set the rheostat to a temperature. It dims the amount of electricity reaching the pad so the UTH only reaches the desired temperature. unfortunately, it allows the UTH to get hot no matter the ambient temperature. So if the room is 95F the UTH will still be on and can cook your snake! So a rheostat has to be watched and adjusted accordingly but can be very inexpensive depending on your model. If you use a heat lamp or ceramic heat emitter make sure to place it outside of the cage, NEVER let it touch the top of the cage. It can heat the screen and this has burned many reptiles in the past. A 75watt light does a good job of heating a 20gal long.
Never use a heat rock for any reptile. Left unregulated they can overheat, create hot spots, and do not give a large enough hot spot for corn snakes. They are ineffective and downright dangerous. Appearance: Corn snakes have a long, relatively slender appearance. Their head is not large like pythons but not as small as milk snakes. Wild corn snakes vary from location to location. In general they have a reddish brown body color with black “saddles” on their back. Inside of these black saddles is a redder color. Their underside is white with a black “checkered” pattern. Here is the top and bottom of a normal corn.
There is considerable variation among wild corn snakes based on locality. Each of these can be considered a “normal” (wild type) colored corn snake.
There are hundreds of corn snake color morphs, as well as several patterns. This means corn snakes come in a huge array of colors including white, grey, red and white, red, albino, and many many more. This striking genetic diversity makes corn snakes excellent for breeding. They reproduce readily and easily. Sexing: There are three ways of sexing corn snakes. Visual sexing, probing, and popping. Visual sexing is the least accurate and least invasive way of sexing. You can look at the tail of the snake. The tail begins where the vent ends. Males taper gently from the vent to the tail, as well as the tail being longer than a females. Females abruptly thin out when the tail begins, and have a short tail. Probing involves inserting a sexing probe into the vent of the snake. If it is a male, the probe will go in deep. If it is a female it will not. Popping is where you apply pressure near the vent of the snake, if it’s male the hemipenises will pop out. Do NOT do this sexing method with adult or sub adult snakes, it can injure them. Hatchlings only. This is a great photo and short explanation of sexing.
Will finish typing this up later.
Handling: Breeding: Conclusion:
