The Corn Snake Manual by Bill and Kathy Love is an excellent beginner's guide to the care, raising, and breeding of corn snakes which also includes a good primer about common corn snake color and pattern morphs.



www.cornutopia.com is Kathy Love's website which also has good information. The cornsnake forum sponsor links are also a good reference to check out to learn more about corn snakes.



Corn snakes are very easy to care for, very calm dispositions (very young babies can be a little nippy but for the most part, gentle handling calms them down very quickly. Baby corn snake bites are completely harmless and practically painless...they may hurt a little if the baby snake bites a very young child...but under a year corn snakes have such tiny teeth, they are not even long enough to puncture much past the first layer of skin. Adult corns rarely bite and again, the occasional adult biter there is very little pain or damage. Mosquitos have a more painful bite in my opinion.



Nearly all captive bred corn snakes eat frozen thawed mice and rats (usually no larger than weaned rats for the bigger corn snakes can be offered instead of full adult mice) without any hesitation. Sometimes newly hatched and shed cornsnake babies may refuse frozen thawed and have to be given live pinky mice...but most breeders switch them to frozen thawed after a couple meals.



Corn snake adult size ranges between 3-5 feet on average, though some can be longer than 5 feet but this is more rare. They live on average 15-20 years so do make a good companion for many years.



Typical corn snake adults do perfectly fine in a 'sweaterbox' sized plastic container or a well sealed 20-35gallon Long aquarium or similar type cage. Both methods work fine though the simpler setup does make it easier to clean and regulate temperatures and humidity. A more naturalistic type setup is a bit more work to set up and clean, as well as maintaining proper temps and humidity.



Reading up on care sheets and past forum posts here, will detail specific details such as temperatures, cool and warm end temps and humidity, safe substrates (what you line the cage with) and other details important to ensure the health and comfort of your corn snake.



The wonderful thing about corn snakes is there is such variety and they are quite hardy and tolerant of beginner mistakes, making them idea as a beginner snake. There is also the fact they can be comfortably housed for as little as $20 to as much as $200 or more..depending on how elaborate you want things to be.
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PHLdyPayne

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