Snakes as Pets

Corn Snakes

As pets

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Corn Snakes hatching from their eggs. The Corn Snake was one of the first snakes to be kept in captivity of humans, and remain one of the most popular. Large numbers are bred annually to ensure that there is a large captive-bred population, lowering the need to collect specimens from the wild. Cohabitation is inadvisable in captivity, as these are naturally solitary animals.

Keepers of Corn Snakes have emphasised a housing with no chance of escape. Corn Snakes are excellent escape artists and will often escape from any enclosure that is not properly fastened. More beginners lose their snakes to escapes than death. Corn snakes are good at climbing, squeezing out of very small holes, and can also use their bodies to push the screen top off of a poorly-fitted aquarium, or push a temporarily-placed top off of a feeding container

Diet

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A Corn Snake swallowing a small mouseCorn Snakes have a diet primarily consisting of rodents, mostly mice and rats which they kill via constriction. They are proficient climbers and may scale trees in search of birds and bats. As litters of infant mice are difficult to find in nature, many neonate Corn Snakes are known to eat small lizards as their first meals, and anoles are the preferred choice.[citation needed] Some individuals retain these dietary tendencies well into adulthood.

Pet Corn Snakes are usually fed by their owners on a diet of commercially available rodents, predominantly mice, while younger and smaller specimens may eat live or dead rat or mouse pups of various sizes. Frozen mice are usually preferable, as live prey can possibly carry disease or injure the snake if it has not been raised on live prey. Frozen newborn rat and mouse pups intended for snakefood are known as "pinkies" in the pet food trade; the larger pups with some white downy hair are known as "fuzzies" or "fluffs".

I have not tried snakes as pets. But I'm planning to try 1 snake this year. Hoping to learn tips from the experts. It will be my first time. I'm a little bit nervous this time. Hope you'll cheer me up!

Yuk! and double yuk. Snakes really scare me and I would never get them as pets. I understand that some people like them- but not me.

My cousin just recently got one for her kids. Crazy I told her- I won't even go to her house.

I was trying to decide what kind of pet to get and when I saw this topic about snakes I thought I'd read it and see if I might like to get one. Even though snakes seem like a good pet I doubt if I would buy one. I don't think I'd be able to even feed it. Maybe I'm more of a fish type of person.

I have also not take snakes as a pet.Corn snakes sound great.

Never had a snake for a pet, but I'm pretty curious about having one as a pet.

Oh boy we had so many snakes when we were growing up. I just loved the way that they moved I found it most amusing. Though feeding time was always depressing as we had to feed them pinkie mice and I think I cried every time.

lol @ skatss- I'm more of a fish type of person too- If it comes to snakes or fish. Snakes scare me. I wouldn't want to feed them mice.

I could never understand why someone would want to keep snakes as a pet, ecpecially venemous one. I actually find them quiet frightening to look at, even photographs make me shudder.

No, a snake for a pet is not for me. I don't mind the one or two grass snakes that hang out by my garden or when the kids find one to show me but, I don't want one for a pet. Nope...now way!

I have not kept a pet snake and I wouldn't. Feeding time is a huge turn-off, I can't bear to feed live mice or other small animals to it. Besides, I don't think reptiles are very responsive as pets.

It is not a very nice idea for me, I think I will never be able to feel comfortable to have a snake around. There are so many shows on TV, featuring snakes I can't watch them even, they are so dreadful creatures.

My friend has a snake pet after you get over the creepiness of it they are cool pets.

There was a guy here in the area who had all kinds of snakes in his house, including venomous ones. One day they all escaped... talk about one scared neighborhood!

News just the other day...

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For 15 minutes of sheer pain 23-year-old Amber Schwartz was attacked by her own pet.
"It hurt. It's like little razors coming down through your finger," says Schwartz.
"I was ganna kill him to get him off me. I told my sister to get a knife then she called 911. "

Snakes are just not good pets for the average person. They're unpredictable and dangerous.

I cared for a room full of snakes in college, as a lab assistant, and have had friends who kept them as pets.

Snakes are actually pretty peaceful, as long as you keep them well fed.

One year I must have been out of my mind and bought my son a pet snake for his birthday. The first night we had it, it got out of the aquarium! It was about 10pm and my son came up and told me the snake escaped! I was freakin! I got my other boys out of bed and had them along with my husband go on a snake hunt! I went and got in bed with my daughter so the snake coudn't get her:) They found the snake in my office!!
It only lived for a little while~ we went on vacation and forgot to leave the light on for it. The stink was horrible from it. That was the first and last snake in our house.

I currently live in Thailand and I see snakes daily outside my house. I am really scared of them and I could never have one as a pet.

I find them comforting. I love pets with scales. My sister thinks things with no legs shouldn't be able to move.

Never will i take care of a snake as a pet. Just taking a look at it makes me scared. I had one friend taking care of it, it was in a aquarium swimming with other big fishes, i wonder if it got out accidentally and bit you.

A snake is a snake is a snake. You allow one in your house...even if it is non-poisonous...and wow... next thing you know...your kids will graduate into poisonous ones.