Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Why do some people with herps look down on people with corn snakes? And ball pythons too for that matter. I have only chatted in a few rooms regularly over the years, but I have seen this all the time. People with herp lets say as a more advanced herper seem (some NOT all) seem to have that attitude of OH you keep corn snakes?! haha.
I just wondered if anyone else has seen these types of feeling toward certain herps. I'm not trying to create a war between herp factions, but I just wanted to hear other opinions.

And I remembered to sign in as HerpZillA. Although it took some time for KS to recognize it. But that's ok, it takes me time to do things too these days.
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Thanks for reading. Peace
Tom

www.HerpZillA.com

I was one of those people.

A friend of mine had some amazing montane kings and the like, and then he showed me some cornsnakes. I said, "Really?" That was 15 yrs ago.

Fast forward to now. I think corns are the bomb. Nobody can argue their keeping qualities. If any snake seems to be made for captivity, it is corns. And the morphs get more and more interesting for sure, though I am glad I don't need to chase morphs necessarily to like my snakes.

So be patient with those people. At some point they may change their minds too.

Regarding ball pythons, for a boid they are easy, so I get that, and they are well suited to rack system living. But I like carpet pythons myself. In many ways carpets and cornsnakes have some similar qualities IMO.
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Mark

i knew a kid in college tht was a very advanced herper with morph copperhead to name jsut 1. he took in a ball python and love it. I use to rag on him all teh time about, since for years he laughed at ppl with them. Theya re all great animals. Heck I like little anoles. Nothing more fun than a big cage and a bunch of anoles and toss in a bunch of flies. And its cheaper than cable!
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Thanks for reading. Peace
Tom

www.HerpZillA.com

I must admit I was one of those people too. I think that people just get tired of seeing them. They are everywhere, pet-c 0 pet smert etc... You never get to see the nicer ones though.
I started by collecting kings and milks. My wife said to me, why don't we get a corn snake? I told her that everyone has them and that makes them lame!

A few weeks ago, I responded to a c-list add for a snow honduran milk snake. It was a bad picture and it was a mother selling it for her son going away to the army. I thought I was getting a nice male to pair with my female... To my surpise upon arrival, I was holding a snow corn... I fell in love with this pretty snake... In fact I got another corn just one week later.

They are tactfull killers... One of them is blind in one eye and still manages to hit the mouse on the nose everytime...

I stand corrected... Every snake is beautifll in its own right!
Corns don't look like much when they are little but are bad ass when they get big.

Don't let that little head fool you... They can chomp down some pretty big mice!

I've been keeping many different herps now for 16 years straight (also kept 'em as a kid for many years) and have decided to just cut back to one pair of snakes (which I will breed from time to time). For beauty, ease of maintenance, ease of breeding, excellent temperament, ease of housing, ease of getting hatchlings feeding, etc. etc. corns were an obvious choice for me personally. I have a male from Jason Hood that had Abbott Okee x Jasper, SC parents, and a female WC from Bradford County, FL, and they are WONDERFUL animals. The male is always a hit at presentations with his striking colors and wonderful personality, and I can sit with the female time after time and just wonder at the complexity of colors and patterns she displays. The offspring they produce are so variable in pattern and it's such a pleasure to watch them color up as they grow. Corns are, quite simply, an outstanding creature in so many ways, and I feel privileged to be able to interact with them in such an intimate way. The older I get, the more precious nature becomes to me and I'm now more satisfied with leaving animals in the wild and photographing and observing them there. I'm think it's that way with many people, and is a good reason to be more understanding about the "foolish" years of over-collecting and always wanting more and different animals that many seem to go through in their development as herpers. But after all of that, I find myself choosing a pair of corn snakes to enjoy at home when I can't get out in the field, and I guess the point of this long ramble was just to say, corns are awesome.
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Carl

>>I've been keeping many different herps now for 16 years straight (also kept 'em as a kid for many years) and have decided to just cut back to one pair of snakes (which I will breed from time to time). For beauty, ease of maintenance, ease of breeding, excellent temperament, ease of housing, ease of getting hatchlings feeding, etc. etc. corns were an obvious choice for me personally. I have a male from Jason Hood that had Abbott Okee x Jasper, SC parents, and a female WC from Bradford County, FL, and they are WONDERFUL animals. The male is always a hit at presentations with his striking colors and wonderful personality, and I can sit with the female time after time and just wonder at the complexity of colors and patterns she displays. The offspring they produce are so variable in pattern and it's such a pleasure to watch them color up as they grow. Corns are, quite simply, an outstanding creature in so many ways, and I feel privileged to be able to interact with them in such an intimate way. The older I get, the more precious nature becomes to me and I'm now more satisfied with leaving animals in the wild and photographing and observing them there. I'm think it's that way with many people, and is a good reason to be more understanding about the "foolish" years of over-collecting and always wanting more and different animals that many seem to go through in their development as herpers. But after all of that, I find myself choosing a pair of corn snakes to enjoy at home when I can't get out in the field, and I guess the point of this long ramble was just to say, corns are awesome.
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>>Carl
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Thanks for reading. Peace
Tom

www.HerpZillA.com

>>
I've gotten it a lot from people who keep hots...a superiority complex I guess. Funny thing is, I've never ended up in the hospital keeping corns and I'm still alive too...seems like a distinct advantage to me.
Everyone has their likes and dislikes, just like music. If you don't listen to the same music as me, you obviously have poor taste in music....lol

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Corn snakes and rat snakes...No one can have just one.
"Resistance is futile"
Jimmy Johnson
Draybars Snakes

I want it, lol.!
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
Jorge Sierra

My Site > www.Sierrasnakes.com

It is strange, and I have seen that type of attitude before too. It is like the idea of a corn being touted as a beginner snake is blended with someone's status of being a " newbie " ( term I can't stand, BTW ), or they are not on the same " level " as those that keep things other than corns. Who cares??? In the grand scheme of life and serious issues to ponder, I do not understand why someone would look down on anyone or any type of snake, while they think they are more " advanced " in the hobby.

What people like varies from person to person. My personal viewpoint is enjoy the snakes you like, and focus on that. Life is too short to be looking down on someone's elses choice of what snakes they like. A normal corn snake or ball python with no blasted morph genes whatsoever is just as beautiful and important as some high dollar toy in a cage.

I have kept snakes pretty much all of my life. This snake pictured, you would not be able to pry it from my cold, dead hands...haha!!!

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Genesis 1:1

I never had problems like that, and I've kept Corn Snakes for years. I bred Delaware Corns for many years and always sold out;still have a big Delaware male, a Kentucky female,and a Southwestern Rat(used to be an emoryi, not sure what it is this week)from Coahuila. If someone was at issue with me keeping Corns I was never told about it.

Bart Bruno

I don't think I've ever seen a Delaware Corn?
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
Jorge Sierra

My Site > www.Sierrasnakes.com

Go to my Facebook page and request a friendship; I post all my herps there.

>>Go to my Facebook page and request a friendship; I post all my herps there.

Thanks, Facebook drives me bonkers, lol.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
Jorge Sierra

My Site > www.Sierrasnakes.com

Yeah I hear all the time on the King forum. I have Kings, and Milks, but by far the most fun to breed are the Corns. Plus nobody gets bent out of shape when you combine different ones to make something unique, cause they're still Corns, lol!

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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
Jorge Sierra

My Site > www.Sierrasnakes.com

Even though I've been keeping snakes since I was a wee lad in 1980, I just got my first corn a couple of years ago. I'd been focused on Honduran milks and my brother had a female bloodred corn that he bought from Soderberg in Daytona '08. He decided to get rid of her so I bought her.

I was never really interested in corns just because they were so common, I guess. I had seen them in pet stores since I was a kid and they didn't hold a great deal of wonder for me. Still, I love all snakes and corns DO come in lots of nice morphs.
So I kept my bloodred female. She colored up nicely and hit breeding size late last year, so I brumated her (without having a mate). Then a friend called and said someone at a rescue that he knew had a white corn snake they were giving away. I told him I'd take it. It turned out to be a male snow with a great disposition. I decided to try to breed him to my female to produce some triple hets even though he hadn't been cooled.

Here's what I've learned as a newcomer to corns: they're awesome.

-My pair bred right away and even though I didn't intend to double clutch the female this year, I made the mistake of tossing them into the same box during an educational presentation I was doing for a bunch of preschoolers. I looked down and they were locked up. Glad the kids couldn't see from their angle. So before the first clutch even hatched, I had a second clutch incubating.

-Great personalities. I knew this already, but I'm still impressed at how laid back they are around other people.

-Great feeders. They eat even better than some of my kings and milks.

It's hard to ignore a species with so many awesome traits. I'm a corn convert. And now I've got a list of morphs I want to get into.

As an interesting footnote: my first clutch came out almost all aneries, so the female must have been a het. I'm going to hold back a pair or trio and try to make some avalanches.
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www.austinreptileshows.com
www.snakerack.info
www.mikefoux.com

Hondurans
Pueblans
Corns
Grey-banded King
California Kings
Speckled Kings (Calcasieu Parish locality)
Brooksi
Goini/Brooksi Crosses
San Diego gophers
Texas Rat
Jungle Carpet Python
Ball Python
BCI
Sulcata
Leopard Geckos
Wife, Caucasius Mexicana Integrade WC

Cool story! I just wanted to say that there is a possiblity they are not Aneries. Corns can look very dark as babies. I have a clutch of very red locality corns that just hatched and the babies also look Anery. But as they grow and shed they will make a tremendous transformation. So you may want to hold them for a few months before you decide which ones you want to keep. Now having said that, they may be Aneries, but if they were both het for Anery you should have only got about 25% Anery.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
Jorge Sierra

My Site > www.Sierrasnakes.com

I've still got half the babies, so I'll keep an eye. I traded the others for a different project.

The dad's a visual snow, so if the mom was het anery it should work out 75% anery....right? They actually came out exactly 75% anery 25% normal. And yeah, the normals were really dark, but still had some red.

If this link works...

Link

...you can see the aneries and the two normals.

One cool thing is they all ate f/t for their first meals, most on the first attempt. Anyway, these are pretty cool!
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www.austinreptileshows.com
www.snakerack.info
www.mikefoux.com

Hondurans
Pueblans
Corns
Grey-banded King
California Kings
Speckled Kings (Calcasieu Parish locality)
Brooksi
Goini/Brooksi Crosses
San Diego gophers
Texas Rat
Jungle Carpet Python
Ball Python
BCI
Sulcata
Leopard Geckos
Wife, Caucasius Mexicana Integrade WC

Congrats on being a "Corn Convert" and on your first Corn Clutch and proving the Mom out to be het Anery. On the "odds" thing you actually beat the odds. Odds were that only half the babies would turn out anery, so if you got 3/4 of the clutch being aneries then that's better odds than what the "expected" odds would have been. Good luck with your Avalanche project and with your soon to be expanded Corn collection as you venture into new morphs!

.
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Slytherin Serpents

Have you been hugged by your snake today?

Ball Pythons
1.1 Het Caramels (Edward & Bella)
0.1 Normal 66% ph Caramel (Rosalie)
0.1 Caramel (Bellatrix)
1.0 Honey Bee (Aragog)
0.1 Hypo Pastel (Nagini)
0.1 Spider 66% ph Hypo(Nymphadora)
1.1 Mojaves (Lucius & Renesme)
1.1 Pastel Lessers (Jacob & Narcissa)
0.1 Pinstripe (Arwen)
1.0 Pewter (Salazar)
0.1 Bumble Bee (Alice)
0.1 Lemonblast (Luna)
1.0 Bell Pastel (Jasper)
0.1 African Dinker (Esme)
0.1 Normal (Madame Olympe Maxime)
0.1 Het Pied
1.1 Pastel Dinkers (Snape & Xiomara)
0.2 Ghana Dinker Babies

Corns
1.1 Normals het Amel, Anery, Charcoal, Diffused, Hypo (Romeo & Juliet)
1.0 Blizzard het Diffused (Tumnus)
1.0 Blizzard poss het Anery, Hypo, Diffused (Cotton)
0.1 Anery Lavender het Amel (Lucy)
0.1 Plasma poss het Hypo (Victoria)
1.0 Plasma poss het Albino
1.0 Hypo Plasma
1.1 Amel Motleys (Harry & Ginny)
0.1 Lavender Motley poss het diffused
1.0 Lavender Pinstripe Motley het Amel
0.1 Fire poss het Anery, Charcoal, Hypo (LeeLoo)
0.1 Normal het Albino, Lavender, Anery, Charcoal, poss het Diffused
1.0 Albino het Lavender, Anery, Charcoal, poss het Diffused
1.1 Sunkissed poss het Plasma (Arthur & Molly)
0.1 Dilute Blue Motley (Myrtle)
1.0 Pastel Motley (Nick)
0.1 Diffused Caramel

Kings
0.1 Thayeri - Leonis (Sidney)
1.0 Thayeri - MSP
2.1 Hypo Brooks

That's a damn good question Tom! I kept timber rattlers and northern copperheads way before I even pondered keeping cornsnakes!To me back then corns were like a "beginner" thing and they did'nt appeal to me.I can remember seeing the pics in old books of the really orange corns and saying "WoW"!I can see those same pics now and I realize alot has changed since then!To each his own but,corn snakes Rock!! JMO!! Jeff

I've been guilty of saying, "It's just a corn." I think its because they are sold everywhere and are very inexpensive ($15 for normals). The market is saturated with a variety of morphs (too many to name)and when something is seen so often, people get complacent.

My first snake was a ball and my second, an amel corn. Since then, I ventured into rainbow boas, colombians, pinesnakes, hognoses, and so forth. However, out of all my "exotics", my wife is terrified of my corn. It is definitely the most active and interactive of all my snakes, and its bright orange coloration is appealing.

It is the easiest to take care of, and because of this, doesn't get the attention it deserves. Although, its my only snake that comes out of its hide to investigate when I'm in the room.

Looking back at this post, corns are amazing, beautiful snakes.