snake forum!?

Any one happen to know of a snake forum where the people are as nice as they are here? I've got a couple of issues with my snakes I need advice on but the forum I'm on right now is full of holier-than-thou people that figure if you have a problem you must be a terrible person that didn't do your homework first. Thanks for any suggestions you may have! Also welcome is anyone here that may be familiar with snakes, particularly corn snakes. This isn't my first go-round with them so it's not like I just walked in and bought a pretty little something. Just encountering issues I couldn't foresee that I haven't had to deal with before. Thanks, again!

EDIT- This is also the reason I haven't been on here much lately. Trying to help these guys before it's too late. I'm sure you all understand how that one goes!

I don't know what forum you are going to now but I have been to kingsnake.com before. They do take a holy attitude sometimes or just don't answer newbie questions.

I have ball pythons. Not that much different than corn snakes. What is going on with them? I have had my older one for 5-1/2 years and the younger almost 4 yrs.

I don't understand forums like that.... They should not even let people register if they are not going to give a welcome or help new commers. Reminds me of some fish forums. People just think they know it all and are to good. Truth be told...There $hit really stinks!

I do not know of any snake forums sorry. Could always make your own. EASY!

bcijoe has snakes, he can either help or point you to someplace that can.
Go ahead and post your issue and hopefully someone on here will be able to help you out!

I also hate forums like that!!

snakes are icky....

I know 'that' forum... they let people who pay to advertise do all sorts of illegal, unethical things, but God forbid a newbie makes one mistake, they jump on you, delete ALL your ads, penalize you and more... and that's the staff..
the members? forget about it... that's why I left


I've been keeping and breeding snakes for over 20 years...

please tell me what's going on.... pm if you'd like, or email directly [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

You guys are the absolute best! I e-love you! It was cornsnakes.com. Someone on there actually implied at one point that I was abusing my snakes while someone else accused me of impulsively getting them as pretty little playthings. Like I said, I'd had three before. I've just never dealt with these issues before so this is new territory for me.

The first one in this set was an impulse buy, I'll admit it. She's a tiny little baby, maybe 12 inches long, and had a propensity for striking. It feels like velcro scratches because she's so tiny! Well, I went in to go looking for dwarf puffers and they were using a snake hook to get her out because they were afraid of her. Stupid, but okay. Well, they took it to a whole other level when they used it to forcibly push her down onto the bottom of the cage before twisting it over and around to pick her up. That has the potential for serious physical injury in such a tiny little thing! So, yes, I bought her on the spot. However, here comes the first problem. I paid for her and asked them not to touch her again pending my picking her up while I made arrangements here for her housing. The agreed to this. Three days later I finally was ready to bring her home. Oh...my...goodness. They apparently didn't heed my request. That first day I saw her I had got her out once I talked them into getting rid of the hook. She struck twice but quickly quieted when she saw I wasn't going to hurt her. Now, she strikes repeatedly on sight when you finally manage to locate her to move her to the feeding container. You pick her up, she continues to strike, non-stop. You place her in the container to get her pinkie thawed, she strikes the side of it repeatedly. She's has become absolutely frantic at the sight of a human and never comes out of hiding. She doesn't appear to have any injuries but I'm looking a) for advice on hand taming her again as I've never dealt with this level of fear and/or b) if she might do better simply not being handled except to be moved out of the cage for cleaning. Obviously, I'd prefer to be able to hold her and love on her. But at this point I need to do what's best for her regardless of my preferences. I simply don't know what that may be given that she's so very young and one would think she'd be rehabbable. She's at my brother's house now without all the chaos of my extremely busy home. He's able to give her as much one on one time as it takes. But neither one of us know exactly how to go about this, just that one single misstep could mean a lifetime of solitude for her or her becoming stressed to the point of dying. I've got three corn snakes now, a motley anery, a creamsicle, and a love line okeetee. The anery and okeetee are both very friendly and the creamsicle quiets quickly after you pick him up but is a normal mildly fearful baby. He won't take more than a couple weeks to come around.

My second issue is one that you'd think would be simple but is frustrating the heck out of me. I can't keep decent humidity in my vivs no matter what I try! I'm running about 10%, though it'll bump up to 30% for about an hour after misting. I do keep humid hides in both setups for them but even those dry out extremely quickly. I'm misting both twice a day with water as well as misting the snakes themselves once a day with Zilla Tropical Mist. The anery, however, dehydrated horribly to where he had lateral folds. He's now being misted three times a day with the tropical mist but still refuses to feed. I'm giving him a few more days before we move to more strenuous tactics as he was rather weak and may simply need time to bounce back. I'm using his grip as my guide at his point as he appears to be fully hydrated now. Temps in both vivs are running 78 on the cool side and 90 on the warm side. I'm trying to bring that warm side down a bit without freezing myself to death but the anery and creamsicle(both smaller than the okeetee) are staying on the warm side. The setups are a 20L with CocoSoft bedding and a 60w black heat light; and a 10 with Zilla Jungle Mix bedding and a 50w red night light. They all are just settling in so I'm not running blue or white bulbs yet and may never run them as my snakes have always seemed to prefer to forgo the extremely bright light they produce. The anery and creamsicle are cohabbed in the 20L as that's how they were in the store and they seem to find comfort in it. They can just about always be found together inside the hides or out. I am watching for any signs of them not wanting to cohabitate anymore though and I'm prepared to seperate them if need be. They are about 10 inches if that right now. All three of these are males.

bcijoe, I'll email this all to you too in case that would be easier for you. I just didn't want to leave all the wonderful supporters here out of the loop as to what's going on or may have ideas to contribute.

that's a lot to read and I just woke up but I had a big savannah monitor before and i currently have a little orange eyed croc skink... reptiles rock. they need their own subforum here.

Have you tried putting plastic wrap or a damp towel over a portion of the top of their enclosure to keep the humidity in? Don't fully cover to allow for air exchange.

The striking scared one I really don't have advice. My older ball has taken to biting me after she eats the past two times so I am not sure what I am dealing with there other than bumping up her meal size, LOL.

I thought about that or even a towel, wild. My only concern is driving the heat up too much. I've been looking for 40 watt bulbs and can't find them so now I'm hoping to stumble across appropriately sized heat mats. I like them better anyway since they don't block the top of the cage. Right now I have to wait for the light on the 10 to cool down before I can set it elsewhere to open the cage. The 20L has a slide top. Yay!

I wrote a huge response and then my pc rebooted.. so this will be in short snips...

First issue, the baby is a baby and ws abused... most babies are terrified as it is, even if not abused. This will take time to correct! Some dogs never get over than and are put down!

Everthing is scary to a baby snake. First thing I tell customers and new snake owners is that as a breeder, we keep them in plastic/pvc caging and plastic opaque tubs.. glass tanks are terrifying and the most unnatural thing for a snake!

They see, hear, feel everything.. you and everyone else do, and this is all foreign and terrifying to them.

First need to setup her tank correctly and then place it in a good, quiet spot with little traffic. First she needs to get used to her new home. May take long, even a week or more without any touching or feeding or hovering over the tank.

After she starts acting normal in her own tank, then you can start approaching slowly, slowly removing the cover and just put your hand in there, slowly, and just leve it there, motionless, for 5-10 minutes or more, until she relaxes and stays calm.

That's the first major hurdle. After than you can start trying to pick her up, and not by going to grab her, or 'chasing' her around the cage, but by placing your hand flat in front of her, then using the other hand to carefully guide her towards the first hand so she can climb on it herself.. This she sees as a branch or tree, NOT harmful as opposed to a live human, or alien, hand!
Keep that hand still and just hold her and she shouldn't be aggressive towards that hand, but she will be striking at anything else so try not to make sudden movements or wave anything in front of her, including talking, moving your mouth, brushing your hair, etc.

She should eventually calm down, and yu can try this several times a day until you can slowly start moving the other hand up and allowing her to cral on it. Take it from there, slow, steady movements, keep her calm, and she should soften up and start moving naturally... always slip your hands under her, not in front of her because that's a threat.

but again she needs to settle in first.. one thing I would do for new snakes or crazy snakes is to cover their whole cage with newspaper so they can't see and eventually calm down.

Kathy Love is a friend, was just at her house Saturday =)


Second issue.

A glass tank, screen cover, heat lamp is the worst possible setup for a snake. All for the reasons you mentioned and more.

Glass tank holds no heat, all goes through glass, glass gets cold.
Screen holds no heat or humidity, allows way too much air in.
Heat lamp is worst way to heat, dangerous, risk of electrical fire, burning snake, dry out snake and enclosure, not to mention burning your hands.. lol

Snakes do NOT need any light whatsoever, regardless of what the pet stores will tell you just to sell them to you! Snakes are burrowing 90% of the day and come out at dark to feed.

Coco soft is a dry terrible bedding too. The jungle floor mix is alot better.

We use simple newspaper, or papertowels, or shredded aspen, or cypress mulch.

USE a heat matt! They need belly heat. Cover about 90% of the screen with seran wrap , leaving only about 1/2" open on each end, and you should be great with a couple mistings a week.

Another thing we do is add a bowl with wet spaghnum moss to keep humidity higher.


If you insist on using the heat light, first know that black, blue, red, white, does not make any difference at all, they are all practically useless. Cover as much of the screen as possibly with seran wrap, place a bowl of water directly under the malp to increase humidity, do the bowl of spaghnum moss, and then wrap the tank with towel to insulate and not let all the heat out.

You can also use a small deak lamp to add basking heat during the day from above, but no direct heat lamp is necessary.

Now another issue, babies that tiny that are not eating every 4-6 days can quickly get emaciated and die. They need to eat, or be forcefed. I catch tiny anole babies outside and use those, since that is their natural prey around here.

Or use day old pinkies mice. two days are too big for the newborns.

Also, if dry and 'foldy', soak in water, or a secret for dehydrated snakes, soak in pedyalite. Use a plastic container with holes before the top and put the lid on, so it has to stay soaking but can still breathe. Doing this can save their life.

Feel free to email me any time. Kathy and I are part of the Calusa Herp Society here in Ft Myers, Fl. I see her often.

We've actually had her for over two weeks now. She hadn't eaten for five days when I got her but was at a good weight so I gave her a week to settle in hoping she'd eventually come out for food. Only opened the cage long enough to mist it, didn't mist her though since she was hiding, and never saw a trace of her at all. Finally it got be to 12 days since she'd eaten so on day 13 I had to pull her out to feed her. That's when she was still absolutely frantic. I keep the back and sides of my cages covered to decrease visual stimuli. She was moved to a 5.5 to make it a little cozier but it hasn't helped. We'll try the plastic bin if we can find a way to heat it. She's now being kept in my brother's bedroom so he's the only one ever around her for now. He's a really quiet person and keeps the room dim which is why I chose to take her there. Since she just fed three days ago he's going to give her up to 10 days to settle in. If she wasn't so young I'd just have him brumate her since his room stays around 50 degrees in the winter. Not once in the whole time I've had her has she voluntarily come out on her own.

On another note, my anery is dehydrated again. Humidity is at 30% in that tank, frequent misting of both the snakes and the viv, and he's got that loose skin again. The creamsicle in the same cage is in excellent condition with a hearty appetite. Can I use an eye dropper to try to get some fluids in him? I'm starting to get concerened about the possiblity of parasites. I showed him the water bowl but he just took one accidental sip and slithered away.

I love all the advice that you were given!

that's when you soak them in a covered lid, and if it's real bad, with pedialyte

another thing i forgot to mention, that thing about removing snakes to a 'feeding container' is pretty silly.. that's a generalized noobie statement that means nothing just like the one inch per gallon for fish 'rule'.

feed it in it's home where it is more comfortable..

imagine being plucked up by aliens and thrown in a strange planet and fearing for your life, and then being tossed a cheeseburger.. pretty dumb.. lol

feed her in her cage, preferebly at night, or when the room is left alone. if that doesn't work, you can try other things like a small container in a dark, warm, quiet room, but that's with a normal snake, not one that is already traumatized of humans! it's tough, lots of patience, but take the time to be slow and steady with her, as you are, she's had it tough and it may take a while..

Glad you are getting lots of help!

Should we have a section on the forum called Other Animals. Tallk dogs, cats, snakes, lizards, ect. ??

YES!

I think its a good idea! Nearly everyone on here has some other critter. And as previously stated we are an awesome helpful forum

Okay! Soooo. I'm sorry to take so long getting back here. Been a long week. Amy, the name my brother gave his brand new best friend that he never thought he'd consider owning, is doing great. That's the spastic amel. Turns out, once I took her over there she was great. My guess is that she's just one of those that's not big on other animals, probably the cats. She's now very amicable to being held, even by a toddler(with very close supervision!) and loves to explore arms, necks, and pockets. She is still very jumpy with fast movements around her head but that's snakes for you and everything I read says it's worse with albinos because of decreased visual acuity. She doesn't strike though. Postures, waits, then relaxes. We always stop moving though when we realize we moved too quick for her. The anery is back at the store I got him from being forcefed. I got him hydrated but he was noticably thin and still refusing to eat. I simply don't have the experience to be comfortable with forcefeeding such a tiny little guy. Called today and he had gotten the first meal in yesterday and was digesting. He was, of course, still very weak and lethargic prior to feeding and hasn't been handled since. I kind of freaked when he had absolutely no grip at all. They said that sometimes some of them just don't do well. Not sure how much I buy that but all other conditions were equal. Same cage in the store, same cage here, same schedule, etc. Pic follows to show just how tiny he is.

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The creamsicle's a pig. Ate two pinkies. Getting better with being handled but still very nervous. Thinking I might name him Tangelo because his color is so fantastically bright.

The love line okeetee...wow. Bcijoe, let Kathy know she's putting out some great snakes. He's a gem. Nothing, absolutely nothing, phases him. He was out the other night exploring his viv apparently. I came out to get a drink to find a cat on top of his cage watching him and he was just checking her out this was a normal occurance. I can pick him up, move him around, no fear at all. He does try to get away but my gut says it's just rampant curiosity about his new world. He's not frantic or anything, just patiently insistant. He'll even let me touch him on top of his head without a care. I'm attaching the best pic I have. He refuses to sit still as he's too busy exploring so I'll have to wait for anything better.

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well congrates on all the hard work.