Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone,

My name is Emily, and my boyfriend Matt and I recently got a pair of corn snakes, one a female ghost corn, and one a male red albino corn. We were told that our snakes, because they are young may be very shy at first.

The red albino is actually very outgoing, we often see him crawling around his tank, climbing up his rocks, or peeking out of his hide spots.

The ghost is a different story altogether. She's more what we expected, frequently hiding almost the whole day in her cave, sometimes we can see just her tail or just her head peeking out from behind the rock on the warm side of her tank.

We to get the ghost used to having people around, but we also don't want to stress her out too much. We brought her home just yesterday, so it's still early. Since we put her in the tank we haven't taken her out and handled her. This morning we saw her go over to her water bowl and take a drink and splash around for a bit before retreating to her warm spot and curling up again.

Basically my question is this: what's the most appropriate course of action for the next few days? The albino seems fairly active and interested, would it be okay for us to handle him? And the ghost seems very timid, should we leave her alone for a while?

I know all these questions are probably very basic, but it's our first snakes and we want to be the most responsible snake owners we can be. I'd really appreciate any advice anyone can give us.

-Emily

I know that it is REALLY hard to do that, but try your hardest. Then after they have both eaten at least one meal, leave them alone for two days so they can digest it, and then you can start handling them in small amounts. Five minutes at a time for the shy ghost, and maybe ten minutes or so for your friendly one. Keep an eye on them, and if they go off feed, you want to reduce or eliminate the handling until they are back on schedule.
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phflame
kingsnake.com host

It is most important to get them to eat good first and then work on interaction.

I would also try to keep there enclosure out of high traffic areas as simply to much action close to the cage can be enough to stress out new babies.

I know its hard, but the snakes need at least a couple days to adjust to their new homes. Especially the skittish one.
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**********Misty**********
I don't suffer from insanity.... I enjoy every minute of it!

thanks to everyone for the advice, here's an update:

We've left the snakes alone almost completely for three days now. Every morning we've changed the water and pretty much left the snakes alone. We've touched the albino a little, but not for any longer then two minutes. Since we brought them home, the ghost has changed a lot. Today she was out and about her tank climbing on her rock, peeping out of her hide cave, climbing ON her hide cave, and she's been resting on her substrate instead of burying under it. She looks great, we even think she's gotten bigger since we first saw her which would be a week and a half ago now.

The red albino is doing just as good as he was before. He's calmed down remarkably since we first introduced him to his tank. When we first let him in, he explored for over half an hour before he settled in. He did enjoy climbing up the sides of the glass (we've heard that corns are excellent escape artists so this didn't really surprise us). We've caught our ghost climbing up the glass as well since she first arrived.

I was just wondering about misting the snakes. We want to do this after they've been fed because our snakes live in the same tank and I read that if there's a lingering smell of rodent on the snake the other might bite. How long after feeding should we wait to mist them? And what's the best way to go about doing it? Should we hold them then mist them, or mist them in their feeding bucket? (we are going to use seperate tall garbage bins to give them their newborn pinkie mice)

And to Kathy Love: we bought your book, and it's been our main source of information, we love reading it and looking at all the amazing pictures. It was suggested to us as "THE" book on Corn Snakes, you did an excellent job answering questions for new snake owners!

-Emily

I to have a pair, A Ghost and an Albino. I feed them in a box and then put them back in there enclosures. As of now as was suggested they do not live together anymore. They are both young and have there own tanks in my snake room. When they did however live together I never saw any problems with puting them right back in together after feeding. Only once or twice Casper "The Ghost" would zoom over to Prince "the Albino" and flick her toung on him and act like she may bite but then she would be like "Oh its just you hi" Never had one strike from eather of them. As far as misting I dont mist mine on a regular basis. Every once in a blue moon if I see they are geting ready to shed "Blue Eyes" I might mist the cage once and then just let them do there thing.
My Research and Collection "New server"

Yeah the shedding thing will definately be an experience. Neither one of them looks like they're ready, there's no colour change, and their eyes look clear, but I'm a little anxious about when it comes. I've been a dog owner almost all my life and this is completely different.

And as for the tank situation, we're getting another one soon, we'll be at the mississauga reptile expo on the weekend so we'll be able to see lots of stuff.

-Emily