Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i think my snake is fixing to shed............this being my first snake i dont know alot about the shedding process.
the snakes eyes look to have a bluish tint to them and his color seems to be off.

Most snakes will do it all on their own. It is a good thing most of the time. It shows that they are absorbing and processing nutrients. Some will eat during this time a lot will not. Most are just a little vulnerable and shy as they are going through it. What else do you need to know?

how long does the whole process take usually?
does the snake quit eating a few weeks or days before the shed?
see today i was told to take the snake to the vet and have the vet force feed it a pinkie, in my opinion that would only stress the snake out and freak him out.
i tried the live pinkie over night, i found the snake in the container the next morning with a dead pinkie on one side of the container and the snake balled up on the other side.

Where'd you get that kind of advice from?

Mm. Sounds like dodgy advice and that your instinct is right, that it would just cause unnecessary stress.

Some Corns will eat happily at any stage of their shed, some just refuse until it's all over. It's very much an individual thing. As long as your fella isn't losing weight and shows no other signs of illness, I'd just try him again afterwards.

A youngster usually shed in 3-5 days. They tend to be a bit faster than the adults. As long as he's otherwise healthy, it won't hurt for him to go without food for that long.

a lady here who used to breed them.
she told me putting himm in a container with a pink wouldnt get any result. and he should be eating 3 pinks a week, before the whole bad pinks thing happened he was eating 2 small ones or one large one, but he did seem to prefer the 2 small, so thats what i was giving.
she also told me i was wasting money buying "new" supplies, because i did buy another hide, a more closed one, and i bought 2 more high range thermometers.
now my question on that is the hot side is 80 to 82 degrees, the cold side 72 to 74.
she told me for the snake to eat i will have to raise the hot to to atleast 85..............is that correct?

Make yourself an educated snake owner. Get a copy (and read it diligently) of Kathy Love's "The Corn Snake Manual." You'll be smarter than most of the folks on this forum and you'll be the owner of one of the happiest corns around. Sincerely.

The brand new 2005 revised edition of that book is called "Corn Snakes: The Comprehensive Owner's Guide", still by Bill and Kathy Love. It's more than twice the size of the old Corn Snake Manual and is guaranteed to make excellent reading.

You know, I have all the respect in the world for Kathy and her extensive knowledge on cornsnakes. Her book is exceptional, and I am looking forward to getting a copy of the newer version as soon as possible.

Even so, saying that getting her book will make one "smarter than most of the folks on this forum" is a bit misleading, and more than a little condescending. Quite frankly, Kathy's book, or any book for that matter, is nothing more than a good "jumping off" point, because corns are individualistic in their needs, and can change their needs when introduced into differing environments. There are just so many variables, no one can have a single volume to address all issues...at least not one that would then be marketable to the average corn owner as Kathy's book obviously is.

There are some newbies on this forum, who are looking for information, and many of them ask the same questions that some of us have answered thousaands of times. There are others who are relative newcomers that are pure know-it-alls in 90 days or less. There are a very few who are simply bad herp keepers and feed ignorance here (and elsewhere I am certain) by their misleading posts, full of fluff and inaccuracies. However, there are some very good herpers here as well, and they have knowledge in their individual, day-by-day experiences that you just won't find in any book. The very fact that Kathy saw the need to update her book was due, I would imagine, to her recognizing that more needed to be expressed than had been tackled in the earlier version. Just the continual creation of new morphs is enough to cause most newer people to pull their hair out by the roots!

So, I would suggest that one buy Kathy's books (both versions!) to read up on all of the generalities to raising cornsnakes. Then, take those generalities and see how they apply (or don't) to your individual snake, in your individual scenario. Then, when you have questions, come here to ask others about what they might have seen or heard in their own collections, or from other sources of wisdom. You'll find that the best keepers are those who understand that the one hard and fast rule about corns is that there are no real hard and fast rules about corns!

As to who is smarter than whom, depending on what book they have read...well, I'll leave the IQ tests up to those whose business it is to guage such things. I know plenty of smart people who are not yet as fully well-versed in corns as they will be in a few months or even a year from now, and I know a few keepers that will never be much more intelligent than the animals they keep.
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

Didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. I feel you're exceptionally sharp and read your responses on this forum with great interest. I'm just trying to get people to start somewhere and I think reading a book on the subject, whether it's Kathy's on someone else's is a great start.

i do have the first book, and another corn snake book, but some times a book cant fully answer your questions.
and i do like darins posts, because he does go into detail on a subject.

However, those same people you are trying to help by offering them access to information found in Kathy's book (and other sources) can often get dismayed at the contentious way in which some of our posts read, whether we meant them that way or not.

Referring to people in relation to their intelligence level on a wide scale may not be the best way to approach the issue, in my opinion. Sorry, if I came off to strong.
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Darin Chappell
Hillbilly Herps
PO Box 254
Rogersville, MO 65742

>>Where'd you get that kind of advice from?

I gave her/him the advise to put the snake with a live pinkie over night.
It had been refusing food. At the time there was no mention of it being in the blue.
Do you find a problem with that advise?
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"resistance is futile"
Jimmy (draybar)

Draybars Snakes

no i dont think they are talking about the advice you gave me, plus at the time you gave me the advice i didnt realize the snake was about to shed.............
the advice that wasnt sound advice was for me to have the snake force fed.

how long does the whole process take usually?
does the snake quit eating a few weeks or days before the shed?

below is the advice spook was talking about not the advice you gave me
**see today i was told to take the snake to the vet and have the vet force feed it a pinkie, in my opinion that would only stress the snake out and freak him out.**

i tried the live pinkie over night, i found the snake in the container the next morning with a dead pinkie on one side of the container and the snake balled up on the other side.

..
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Corn snakes and rat snakes..No one can have just one.
"resistance is futile"
Jimmy (draybar)

Draybars Snakes

The force feeding was what I found concern with.

One thing that first timers may like to know is that the snakes eyes will clear up a day or two before it actually sheds. Sometimes people think the snake ate the skin or cant figure out where it went when they see the clear eyes. With corns you usually dont have to worry about their sheds, but just in case check him out afterwards to make sure its all off. I dont see you having any problems though. Its pretty cool to watch if you catch them in the act. Mine usually do it at night though. Hope that helped some.

EP
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Occupants not paying rent:
1.1.5 balls
2.1.8 corns(candy cane, creamsicle, ghost, 4 normal,
4 anery )
1 pueblan milk
1 everglades rat
1 cal. king
1 gray band king
1 w. hognose
1 bearded dragon
1 fish
1 mouse
3.3 cats