Corn Snakes and...Mothers.

I was going to go with Leopard Gecko's for my 55 gallon but I am having financial issues. Here Leopard Gecko's are not super popular and go for 35-40 dollars EACH even with my Petsmart Employee discount and Petsmart Membership card. I cannot imagine buying 4-5 of them for that price even if it's over a slow amount of time. I looked up the cheapest sites even with, possible, shady shipping and the pricing to get the Gecko's in Japan is costly and restricted (Customs).

Corn Snakes here are a base price of 50 dollars, 60 dollars for common morphs, and 80 dollars for more unusual morphs while I may be spending hundreds for a couple of Gecko's.

This seems a cheaper way to go and I haven't heard of many horror stories of Corn Snakes biting. They seem easy to handle, docile, and care basic. They'd be good for my Nephew whom lives with me.

Anyways I have one big question that I'd appreciate you guys helping me out with, you may proceed to laugh.

- How to convince your mother, haha.

Even though I am in college, I live alone and run my own home, purchase my own food she seemingly still runs my life!

She doesn't want them in MY house because she won't visit me with a single silly snake that'll be upstairs:

1) She afraid of mice. I'm not. They sell cheap frozen mice at the Petsmart (a variety to pinky to larger). I'd hate for her to go in my fridge and find packaged mice. She's afraid too. Hates mice as much as the cute little snake.

2) She's afraid it'll hurt my Nephew or escape and hurt the two dogs. I tried telling her that the bites recorded felt much like Velcro ripped off a hairy arm, some don't even draw blood, and Corn Snakes are fine with being handled if you do it the proper way. Any other suggestions?

Even know this is really silly,

Thanks.

P.S Any care tips that I haven't already seen would be great too!

It'll be one Corn in a 55 gallon.

 

This sounds just like my situation! lol

In my senior year in high school I was a teacher aide for one of my favorite teachers. One day I went to the teachers-lounge-type-area to grade papers and noticed a baby corn in a medium-sized water bottle. I asked my teacher about it and she said one of her students gave it to her, though she had no knowledge of them and wasn't keen on feeding it mice every week; so I told her I'd take it- just had to get permission from the mother first!

My mom used to be absolutely terrified of snakes, even though she grew up on a farm and has/does own just about any sort of pet you can think of (including other reptiles!). My argument sounded like this:

*Molly (my sister) has a leopard gecko, and snakes are just like those only without legs (not entirely true, but believable, lol)
*It will be in my room- you don't have to feed it, water it, or look at it!
*It also helped that I got it as a baby, so it was a little easier to convince her that it was, in fact, cute. When asked questions like "how big will it get?" I avoided direct answers, and instead said "not too big"/"not much bigger than this". I figured by the time it gets big, she'll have gotten over her fear! (I also avoided mentioning that they eat mice and rather said frozen food, but I guess it's too late for you to use that one!)

As for biting, corn snakes are honestly one of, if not the nicest snake you can get. My corn snakes have never shown any aggression, even in agitating circumstances. I have two young children that live next door to me and I like to take any opportunity I can to educate them on my snakes. When they first saw me holding my corn Azazel, they told me that if they ever saw a snake they would kill it; however I was able to convince them to hold Zaze- they asked all sorts of questions (and I'm pretty confident that the next time they see a snake they'll think carefully about killing it). (The point of this story being that they pestered the bejeezus out of poor Azazel and got absolutely no reaction out of him!)

My mother now somewhat enjoys interacting with my corn, and I was even able to talk her into letting me get a second!

 

Seeing this makes me happy, Ash

one thing I might suggest is keeping the mice in a plastic bag in the very back of the freezer, which should stop her from seeing it. It took my mom 4 months to realize I had mine in the freezer, and that was because I was moving them to the chest freezer we put next to my room >:]

As for the mother... I'm not sure. One thing you might do is try to get her to watch Snakebytes on youtube, because I think they have some episodes dedicated to corn snakes where no one gets bitten. Despite living with my mom, I got away with it by just never mentioning that I had it until she noticed it a couple months after I had it, and by then it was family (we have a rule that if it lives on our land for over a week, it belongs to us)

I still kind of miss that snake, but Blood Pythons are not a friendly snake and at the time I thought we were going to get custody over my niece so I gave her to a friend.

 

What about a hodgenose, they're smaller and very cute.

 

Cool idea!

 

Well thanks for everyone's suggestions!

I will be getting a Cornsnake and hopefully I'll find a reliable desktop fridge to keep on the desk where the snake's are. Therefore no rats/mice in the main fridge for my animal-loving mother to see. Once I showed her a couple of pictures of small children holding the Rat Snake, took her out to the zoo to actually see in person, she agreed that she wouldn't be disturbed...Though I am trying to make her hold it!

I found someone selling 3 week old hatchlings for 20 dollars. The father is hypomenalestic and the mother a strawberry corn. They look more like they have a yellowish/carmal coloration but I'm told that they ENTIRELY change once they start going into adulthood!

Hopefully I'll get some pictures up and I have some new photo's of the 500 gallon marine tank!

 

Well congratulations on choosing your reptile, and on winning over your mom! I'm sorry the leopard geckos didn't work out, but you're going to love the cornsnake! Every one I've ever come across has been as docile as can be. Even when you run into one with an attitude, I can't imagine that the bite is worse than what you'd get off a foul-tempered lizard. I found a baby one a couple years ago that had crawled into a shopping cart in the mall parking lot to get warm and was accidentally brought inside the mall. I rescued him and was so temped to keep it... But, I turned him loose in my huge yard instead where there are plenty of rodents to munch and no Hummers to squash him. Can't wait to see pics of yours! You can at least show us your setup, you know...

 

Nice corns are awesome. Only problem I see is a 55 gallon is way to big for even 1 adult corn snake. Most people recommend a 20 gallon long for corn snakes. I have 3
My striped corn

My snow motley corn

And my normal corn

I also have 2 ball pythons which would be a lot better choice for a 55g.

Ps. I also live at home and my mother is terrified of snakes but I live down stairs and everyone else lives upstairs

 

What about a hodgenose, they're smaller and very cute.

Do you mean Hognose? If so, they're dirty (ie; messy, nasty). At least the Eastern ones are.

 

One of those is the corn I'll be getting. They look big in the picture but are as large as bigt's snakes...Which by the way are very beautiful snakes!

I'll be picking one up on Sunday.

 

Very nice! What breed of corn snake is that? All of the ones I ever had were a lot more orangish... but this was back in North Carolina and Florida and quite a few of them were wild caught (I call my X-Husband the snake whisperer lol. He had a way with animals, especially snakes).

I almost want another snake. I think if I got another one it would be some type of King Snake. Milk Snakes are another that are especially colorful that I've thought about.

 

The white one is a snow motley corn and by far my favorite the redish one is a striped corn and the black ones a normal. I like how the normal looks as a baby but as he gets older they fade and get a lot lighter

 

Oh yeah and just a heads up you mite want to pick up a digital scale to keep track of the snakes weight how much you feed them depends on what he weighs up to 15 grams you feed 1 pinky every 5-7 days 15-25 grams feed them 2 pinkys every 5-7 days there's a chart that explains it all

 

Herea the chart


-When they're on single pinks (2-3g), I feed every 4-5 days. (Snake = 4-15g)
-Double pinks (3g x 2) every 4-5 days. (Snake = 16-23g)
-Small fuzzies (5-7g) every 5-6 days. (Snake = 24-30g)
-Regular fuzzies (7-9g) every 5-6 days (Snake = 30-50g)
-Hoppers (9-12g) every 5-6 days (Snake = 51-90g)
-Weaned (14-20g) every 7 days (Snake = 91-170g)
-Adult (24-30g) every 7-x days (Snake = 170+)
-Jumbo Adults (40-50g) every 7-x days (Snake = 400g+

 

Oh thanks!

The snake's in my picture were a morph of:

Father a hypomenalstic and the Mother a Strawberry Corn. I was told by a friend of mine, who breeds corns, that he though the father was partly caramel.

 

Why not feed live mice, then no food in the freezer.

 

You guys are so lucky! Whenever I bring up another live animal my dad freaks! (I still secretly add fish to my tank, just can't get another tank) I need my own place...
2 years to go...

 

Oh thanks!

The snake's in my picture were a morph of:

Father a hypomenalstic and the Mother a Strawberry Corn. I was told by a friend of mine, who breeds corns, that he though the father was partly caramel.

Didnt realize that they where a morph they look like normals. Think the genes you mentioned are recessive genes which means if you breed them together you get normal looking babys het for what there parents where and they look normal but if you breed 2 hets together you will get the original morphs. Still very new to genetics but I believe what I wrote is rite

 

Its better to feed frozen thawed especially if the ops mother is an animal rites person its more humane to the mice. Live food should only be used if your snake won't eat frizen thawed

 

Babies are suppose to drastically change so we'll see after a couple of sheds!

 

I checked both genes are recessive so unless your breed the same 2 recessive genes together you get a normal looking snake if you breed 2 of the babies together then you will get 1/4 strawberry 1/4 hypo 1/4 strawberry hypo and 1/4 normals that's not always how it works out but but theoretically that's how the offspring of the babies should turn out

 

Did you get your snake yet?

 

- How to convince your mother, haha.

Even though I am in college, I live alone and run my own home, purchase my own food she seemingly still runs my life!

She doesn't want them in MY house because she won't visit me with a single silly snake that'll be upstairs:

In my world that's a win/win situation

I remember the day quite vividly that I had to tell my mother "Look, I haven't lived with you for over 20 years. I have a wife, two children and a dog. This is MY house. If you don't like it, don't visit".

It took her a while to get the message, but eventually she realised that I did have a point. You probably shouldn't need to be quite so blunt, but there is a point where parents need to understand that they are no longer able to run your life.

 

Here are some pictures. I picked him up yesterday and the nice lady gave him to me for free! She said she's pretty 50/50 sure he's a boy but I'll try to figure it out later. She's been holding him since he's hatched and he hasn't been nippy at all. He's very sweet.

My mother was very surprised and pleased. She actually held him.




I'll upload the vivarium picture soon...It's apparantly too big for a thumbnail.