Corn snake eating mouse


My corn snake, Orville, eating a mouse (thawed from frozen).
First of all, an apology, for those who just saw this and had a panic attack.  Snakes are one of those things that some people just can't stand.  Most snakes, in Canada anyways, are non poisonous.  There are a few that can kill if you don't get quick medical attention, but the number of people who get bitten, let alone die, are small.  In Canada only about 300 people get bitten by a snake each year, and none of them die (see bottom link).  Some poisonous snakes, such as the night snake and hog nose snake, produce venom that are of low impact to humans.  The more poisonous ones, like rattlesnakes, live in only restricted areas and are not seen all that often.  You can take this from someone who looks for snakes regularly - I have only seen two rattlesnakes.
Orville, his name, is a corn snake, native to southeastern US.  Corn snakes are related to milk and king snakes, which are constrictors.  This particular family of snakes is somewhat immune to snake venom as many of them feed on other snakes, including the poisonous ones.  Corn snakes are marvelous at pest control; they have a hearty appetite for vermin.  I feed Orville a small sized mouse about once every 8 or 9 days on the average.  It has to be thawed first and then bounced around a bit in front of him.  Snakes are born hunters and are guided to their meals by sight and smell.  Moving it around a bit helps to stimulate his interest, although truthfully I could probably just put it on the ground or hang it from a branch and it would still eat it.
Corn snakes, as do many other species of snake, live about 20 years.  Another person I know had one that lived to the age of 17, a decent age for a snake.  He is currently 11 years old and a little over a meter long.  They grow to a maximum length of about two meters.  I would probably have to feed him more regularly to get him to grow to that size though.  He sheds about three times a year.  The snake skin, called an ecdysis, is shed in one piece.  I have found a number of them in the wild, mostly garter and gopher snake skins.  The whole process is quite remarkable.
I will take him out of the cage every once in a while.  Some people think snakes are slimy but they are dry and smooth, with a backwards roughness that helps them move.  I have to be careful when taking him out as he will bite.  Once out he is fine, but getting him there takes a bit of a strategy as he has nailed me more than once.  Snakes, especially constrictors, have sharp, recurved teeth and the larger ones can draw blood.  They also carry salmonella, a bacteria, which can cause sickness in humans.  I wash my hands thoroughly after handling him. 
I want to get some lizards as well, though they take much more care and attention.  Maybe one day.  For now, I will just enjoy having my snake.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Columbia spotted frog

Image
Columbia spotted frog I grew up in Ontario as a kid and lived near natural areas that teemed with life of all kinds.  There were insects and mammals, amphibians and turtles, and lots of different kinds of fish.  We spent hours wandering around the near by wilds, exploring every nook and cranny and discovering the wide assortment of creatures that existed there.  It was there that the passion for wildlife took hold of me, where I learned to catch and identify creatures, and there that I formed an interesting bond with my brother. The two of us are almost seven years apart, an eternity when you are young, and we never really spent much time together doing stuff.  We did, however, both develop an interest in the outdoors, him more towards fishing and me more towards photography.  As adults now we find that this is a common theme that runs through our lives, both drawn towards living things existing naturally around us.  We have both shared our passion wit...
Read more

Common garter snake - the Puget Sound garter snake subspecies.

Image
Puget Sound garter snake Everyone knows what a garter snake looks like, right?  It turns out that there are many different species of garter snake, and then there are subspecies on top of that.  For example, here in British Columbia, there are three distinct species of garter snakes.  There is the western terrestrial garter snake, the northwestern garter snake, and the common garter snake.  I have caught each of them but sometimes have felt like there were more than just three species.  That is because, within a species, there may be two or more subspecies. A subspecies is a group of individuals belonging to a population, which is geographically isolated from other populations of the same species.  There typically are many differences between the different groups though.  Different subspecies may be able to interbreed if given the opportunity and produce viable offspring that are not sterile.  Genetically they are very close, but it is their...
Read more

The Gopher Tortoise - Photographed in Florida

Image
I photographed this wild gopher tortoise while visiting in Florida last year. Habitat is important for animals.  Most creatures need a place to live, food to eat, and can live only within certain temperature and precipitation tolerances.  This all sounds very rhetorical, but we seem to forget this when it comes to land usage.  It becomes about the god which seems to drive man more than any other; money.  The land becomes part of the foundation for our creations of building, transportation, or recreation.  These destroy the habitat which the native occupants require, and they do the only thing they can.  They die. It is amazing how much one organism affects another.  A great example of this is the gopher tortoise.  You may think that this slow-moving domed reptile would not have much in the way of needs, or that its existence, one way or another, wouldn't make a difference to neighbouring creatures.  But, you would be wrong.  It tur...
Read more