Hi Paulao,
Welcome to the world of herp care, but especially to the realm of the snake keeper. Snakes are fascinating animals, are fun to keep, and are educational also. You have made a pretty good choice starting off with a corn snake. I was not clear on whether or not you also got that BP - if you did fine, if not then let me point out you are better off starting with a corn snake as they are somewhat easier to keep as a first snake. Remember to buy captive bred, make sure to see the snake eat before you buy it, and in my opinion stay away from pet shops. For the most part they are not the best places in my opinion to buy a snake. I think you are better off going to a local breeder or a herp show to make the purchase. I base that on 35+ years of snake keeping experience.
Think about joining a local herpetological society. If you are anywhere near Long Island, NY or the NYC area I can recommend two of them for you. If you are please do not give me your address or anything like that (especially if you are under 18), just tell me you want the info on the clubs and I will forward it to you. These societies are a great way to socialize with others in the hobby, are an excellent source of information, are also an excellent source for snakes and other herps as people often sell captive bred animals at meetings. They are usually not very expensive to join, and membership usually includes monthly meetings and a newsletter or journal that is sent out periodically.
May I recommend that you do as much research as you reasonably can before buying the snake. Do research on the net, but do not make that your only research. Make sure to read some good books on the subject such as:
Keeping and Breeding Corn Snakes (Mc Eachern, Michael J. Advanced Vivarium Systems. Lakeside, Ca. 1991.) or
Keeping And Breeding Snakes (Mattison, Chris. Blandford Press, London. 1988)
The first is a good book solely about corn snakes, the second is a book about snakes in general. Both have lots of info that you will need. If purchasing only one, I recommend the second.
I have an article available about keeping and breeding corn snakes. It can be found at:
http://hometown.aol.com/GBartHGWT/corn
or by clicking this link:
corn snake article
If those do not work then visit my homepage at:
Herp Helper
A link to that article is at the bottom of my home page. The document is in MS Word format. It can be seen directly over the net or downloaded to disk if you are using MS Internet Explorer. If you need any further help or have questions, you can email me at:
[email protected]
Best regards,
Glenn Bartley
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