Beginners Guide To Keeping Snakes

Luckily the overwhelming majority of the appropriate snakes one might decide to keep, eg: corn snakes, king snakes or milk snakes, need very little special treatment and shortly become awfully low maintenance captives.

Quiet, well-behaved, not requiring regular walks and almost scent-free while being peculiar and engaging, snakes can be a perfect pet for today’s ever-busy lifestyle.

Wooden cages should be avoided unless they’re treated in order to elude any spillage from the water bowl ( several snakes like to wash ) and ventilation must be good as moist cages regularly lead to peeling skins or respiratory issues. A length of about 30-45 cm is acceptable for a hatchling snake while an adult will need a length of 60-90 cm so it can stretch out.

The cage should be furnished with one of the reptile-safe substrates such as beech chippings or corn cob granules and should be placed 1/3 – 1/2 over a safe, specially-sold, low-wattage heat mat to gently warm the substrate for the snake. These cost just cents to run every day and generate a restful background heat for your pet.

This temperature should be maintained at one end of the cage across the day though this can drop by a few degrees at night without worry of danger to your pet. If employing a bulb a thermostat is advocated to permit you to accurately control the temperature and stop the cage overheating.

A hide should be included as snakes are commonly quite reclusive and like to cover away for most of the day, showing themselves early in the morning and later in the evening.

This should be a specially-sold reptile hide but I simply employ a box – like an old cereal box – as they are free and simply replaced when they are getting filthy.

As you can see keeping the smaller, more docile snakes doesn’t have to mean bankruptcy, nor do you these days need to “make do” with unacceptable products. Corporations like ZooMed make top of the range, expert hardware for just this purpose, and make it available for a really reasonable cost.

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