A guide to keeping corn snakes as pets, covering what you need to know before getting one, how to set up their terrarium, temperature and humidity requirements, feeding schedules, and how to handle them safely.
Foreign I would like to start a new video series. As you know, we have already talked about turtles, pond fish, aquariums, frogs and geckos. And now it is time to talk about something that I know many of you have been waiting for. We are finally going to talk about snakes. What are the best snakes to get started in this fascinating world? They are incredible animals and they are also very easy to care for. Before we start talking about the Panthera guttatus or the Aphicutatus or corn snake, I would like us to have some very clear concepts. First, you must be familiar with the specific legislation for the snake or ophidian that you want to care for. For example, the corn snake has specific legislation here in Spain, where in the community of the Barbary Islands. The care and ownership of this snake is not allowed. Another thing that you have to take into consideration, pay attention, is to do a lot of research, read a lot about the species and get to know its biology well. This will help you make the right choice of terrarium or the species that you want to care for. On the other hand, and no less important, even with a good terrarium, in this case, we are going to go for a terrarium of a considerable size. It is 60 centimeters. It has enough space. Regarding terrariums, it is essential to carefully control the temperature and humidity for snakes. If we have these two concepts clear, your pet will be in perfect condition. On the other hand, and I would like to highlight this as another important point, these animals must receive specific veterinary care. They must be dewormed once a year, and the veterinarian must have some control over how the animal is progressing. Believe it or not, these animals can live for many years, possibly more than 20. Keep this in mind because you are going to have a pet for a long time. If this pet is going to live at home with other pets, even with children, it is important to choose the right terrarium. We will talk about this later and what aspects you have to take into consideration. Another topic that I would also like to address is the feeding. All these snakes are carnivores. They usually eat small vertebrates such as mice and rats. So if you are someone who is not prepared to see this part of the life cycle, I would tell you one thing. It is better to look at another type of pet which will surely be less abrupt when it comes to feeding them. Regarding the subject of feeding, we will touch on that point. There are animals that you can get to start eating frozen food. Yes, frozen mice. But we will discuss that in another video and before continuing with the assembly of the terrarium, which I will do in a second video, which is very simple. We are going to need a heating stone, some decoration, thermometers. I want to show you a specimen of the corn snake. Very nice. It is in its juvenile phase and I will be able to talk about it in more depth. I would like to talk about transport and handling. Snakes are usually delivered in a carrier. This can be made of plastic, as you can see, and it will come, as you can see, with a small leaf. These animals must be handled with great care. They are not poisonous animals. They are not animals that are going to bite. As you can see, this beautiful corn snake is in its juvenile stage. The colors are wonderful and it belongs to the colubrid family. Its original origin is American. It comes from the United States and is distributed across a large area of the United States. Be careful with this. It means that this animal can also hibernate. Yes, that's correct. I would recommend that you do not hibernate for the first two years. This one in particular was born here in Europe. There are different breeders in Europe who have these snakes. Another important issue is their reproduction. They are sexually active when they reach three or four years of age. And the dimorphism is difficult to appreciate. For that, you would need to take it to a specialist and have the animal sexed. There is no easy way to see if it is male or female. They can live up to 20 years. They are wonderful and can measure up to 1.50 meters. Their maximum weight will be around 1 kg. They need a certain temperature and attention, which is one of the key points for all snakes if you want to keep them well. The night temperature should not drop below 24 grams for the first two years. And during the day it can go up to 32 grams without any problem. They like relative humidity between 65 and 85%. Ideally, you should have a bowl of water so that they can take a bath on days when it is very hot or when they need it. This water bath also helps them with shedding because snakes will have to shed their skin in order to grow. How often do they shed it? Well, it will depend when they are in this juvenile phase. They can eat once every 15 days and they will shed their skin around 10 days later. Finally, I would like to emphasize that they are easy pets to care for and that is why this species is so popular. They hardly smell at all. The only thing they will smell is obviously when they do their poop. And you will have to clean it. That's about every 10 days. It's easy to do. We're going to explain all the maintenance in future videos. I hope you enjoyed this video. Next, we're going to assemble the terrarium and everything. This little animal needs to be in perfect condition. We'll also talk about its diet in other videos and its main maintenance. I hope you enjoyed it. See you on Kiwoko. It's important that if you're thinking about getting a snake, you at least keep in mind that it's an animal that's going to live for many years. And that's important when thinking about getting Sam.
