Creating the Right Environment for your Corn Snake

• Get the right cage size

If your Corn Snake is still irritated after you have introduced yourself and deprogrammed it, there could be something on its environment that makes it upset or sick. If your Corn Snake feels upset because it is too cold or hot, or feels threatened or vulnerable in its environment, it is more likely to lash out. Thus, creating and maintaining a right environment for your pet is imperative to taming it. Getting it a proper cage is the first step in creating the environment of your Corn Snake.

• Provide proper lighting

Some Corn Snakes are diurnal snakes, others are nocturnal thus they need a bright white light during the day and very dim lighting during the night. You have to place an incandescent white light above your Corn Snake’s terrarium if the room you are keeping your snake in has only dim lighting. In this way, you can give them enough light. On the other hand, they need very little light during the night. Decorative incandescent lights that come in dark colors such as red, blue, and green will give the right amount of light during the night.

Heating and lighting your Corn Snake’s cage go hand in hand so you may want to pay attention to how one affects the other 

• Provide a primary heat source

Corn Snakes require the right temperature to live comfortably. This means they require both a primary and secondary heat source. Primary heat source is needed to keep the temperature of the entire terrarium in the correct range. You can do this by adding a series of incandescent lights along the top of the terrarium.

There are a lot of varieties to create the right night time temperature on your Corn Snake’s terrarium. You can use different options such as a heating pad placed under the snake’s terrarium, ceramic infrared heat emitters, or nocturnal reptile incandescent light bulbs. All of these things that were mention provide heat without much light

Use several thermometers and place it in your Corn Snake’s terrarium to ensure that you are keeping it at optimal temperatures.

• Provide a secondary heat source

Snakes need a temperature gradient in their terrariums so that they can go to whichever temperature is most comfortable for them. You can do this by installing a secondary heat source in your Corn Snake’s terrarium.

In order to create this secondary heat source, you can either place an under-the tank-heater underneath only one-quarter of the tank or you can mount a 50 to 75 watt incandescent light bulb located on the outside of one wall of the snake’s terrarium.

“Basking lights” are a very great choice to create a heat gradient as well. Basking lights are placed outside the terrarium wherein it creates heat in one specific area of the tank. 

• Create various hiding places for your Corn Snake

Snakes are hiders by nature, especially when they are in the wild. They often hide if they feel threatened so if you do not have places for them to hide, it will likely feel threatened and vulnerable, thus, resulting to a potentially aggressive behavior.

Great hiding places may be a cave made of rock or a clean piece of cardboard. You can also be creative and use plastic or clay flowerpots as their hiding places. 

• Provide water

Just like any other animals, Corn Snakes need water in order to survive. Be sure that your pet snake has clean and fresh water all the time. You can use a water bowl in its terrarium, but make sure it is not easily tipped over.

Important Reminders:

• Do not handle a Corn Snake if it’s shedding because they might be more aggressive during these times.

• You can still expect your Corn Snake to exhibit some defensive behavior even though they are tamed. These behaviors include emitting a foul-smelling odor, musking, thrashing, or biting. However, these actions are not dangerous since Corn Snakes are non-venomous snakes and don’t normally cause any serious injury.