How to Care for a Pet Corn Snake

Holli Friedland: I am Holli Friedland, Program Director of the Mid-Atlantic Reptile Show and we are going to talk about how to care for a Corn snake. Today, we are going to talk about how to decide if a corn snake is the right pet for you, how to set up your enclosure for your corn snake, temperature and lighting for your corn snake, choosing a corn snake that's right for you handling your corn snake, feeding your snake and how to troubleshoot problems with your corn snake. The tools that we are going to need today are an aquarium and a lid, cage clips that help keep the snake secure in the cage, tongs for feeding, a snake hook, a plastic container with a hole cut in it for humidity box, a log for the snake to hide and feel secure, a heating pad, a light and a water bowl. We will need moss and some Aspen bedding. You are handling a wild animal and you want to keep safe. One thing that you should do is always wash your hands or use a hand sanitizer after you handle any reptile to avoid getting Salmonella. All reptiles can carry Salmonella. You want make sure that your hands are clean before you start dealing with your snake and you don't want to smell like rodent, if you have defrosted a rodent and always should use tongs when you are feeding your snake.

I am the Program Director of the Mid-Atlantic Reptile show and I have been involved with the show for the past 12 years and I run the MARS Reptile & Amphibian Rescue and I have been doing that for about ten years. So let's get started. The first thing we are going to do is decide if a corn snake is the right pet for you.