Heating corn snakes
Heating corn snakes
Corn snakes, like all reptiles are cold blooded. They use external temperatures to control their own temperature, this means that they require a certain degree of temperature control within their enclosure. This means to successfully keep a corn snake (or most other reptiles for that matter, location dependant) you must provide a temperature gradient snake is able to regulate its body temperature (a process known as thermoregulation, and a term you’ll hear banded about a lot in the hobby). Providing a temperature gradient like this is actually quite a bit easier than it sounds, and luckily there is a whole range of reptile products to help us do this.
My preference for heating corn snakes is with the humble heat mat. Heat mats are cheap, long lasting and once attached to a thermostat they become safe, reliable sources of heat. Thermostats are temperature controlling devices which work in a number of ways, more often than not with the cheap models this simply involves turning the heat on and off to maintain a reasonably constant temperature. I am just going to take a moment here to stress the value and importance of thermostats in the hobby. They aren’t expensive, less than $50/£30 for the cheaper ones, which to be honest are all you really need for a heat mat – a small price to pay for the piece of mind.
Once attached to a thermostat you need to place the heat mat underneath the warm end of the vivarium. It should cover no more than 50% of the floor space (generally the aim is 30-50% of coverage). This will form the warm end of the vivarium for your corn snake. Essentially all you will be doing is using the heat mat to create optimum warmer temperatures, leaving the cool end down to room temperature. You’ll find that so long as the corn snake has access to these two temperatures (and feels comfortable in both areas – you’ll need a hide in both the warm and cool area of the vivarium, more on that later). Obviously common sense is required, if your snake is kept in a room which sometimes gets too cool in winter (ie below 65f for instance) then supplemental heating may be required). For this there are a few options, including light bulbs and ceramic bulbs (both of those options will require a guard and a different thermostat, dimmer and pulse proportional, respectively).
Corn snakes need the following temperatures:
Warm end: 90-92f
Cool end: 76-78f
Position your heat mat under the warm end and put the thermostat probe where the snake will come into contact with it, lying on top of the substrate – this is quite important. Then use a thermometer to play about with the dial on the thermostat until you get 86-88f. The dials on thermostats are often slightly inaccurate so you will need a thermometer in there to get accurate temperature readings. You generally don’t need to worry about the cool end temperatures providing the warm end is warm enough. If you can’t achieve high warm enough temperatures in the warm end you should supplement them with a light as aforementioned.
Humidity
Corn snake humidity requirements
Corn snakes don’t have any special humidity requirements. They are generally quite happy at room humidity (roughly 40% depending upon your location). When they are shedding their skin it is worth increasing the humidity slightly to help them shed. To do this just mist lightly every other day from when they go milky/dull until they shed. Make sure you have adequate ventilation so condensation doesn’t build up.
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