#looneythin

[irishais]

i’m SO SCARED to hold my corn snake!!!! 😭 he’s been with me for about a week now and i haven’t held him yet :( i’ve also never held a snake before in general….

advice???

Ahh! Don't be! Honestly, you've already done the best thing by letting him chill for a week and letting him get used to his new space!

When I got Noodle, I was actually really super nervous too-- I never really liked snakes, and was actually pretty afraid of them. I recommend Snake Discovery for handling/enclosure tips, as they're pretty much the whole reason I got a snake (and then a second snake) in the first place lmao.

They definitely do not feel like what you're expecting; I compare my pasta children to the rough side of a bandaid-- Noodle is a lot smoother than my ball python, Galadriel, because of the difference in size and shape of their scales.

I really cannot recommend enough just talking to him! They learn voices-- I'll babytalk at him and Noodle will stick his head right up out of the substrate to seek me out. I talk to him when I'm picking him up and when I'm holding him, so he associates my voice with the rest of me and knows he's safe.

But you asked for handling information, which I have, and which is extensive and probably far more information than you're looking for, so I'm going to put it under a cut:

I handle Noodle a lot, because I really wanted him to get socialized and comfortable with being held and generally passed around to friends/family who also want to hold him without him freaking out. You shouldn't ever handle them more than once a day, usually a few times a week at most. You should also start with just putting your hand in his enclosure for like five or ten minutes at a stretch, letting him smell you and get to know your scent. When you first pick him up, limit it to a few minutes, and then gradually increase how long you have him out.

Corn snakes are fast. You literally cannot take your eyes off them for a second, because they get worse zoomies than cats sometimes and have a great need to go literally everywhere they really should not (the list of things I Have Rescued Noodle Off Of is extensive, as he has like one brain cell that bounces around in his head like a Windows 95 screensaver).

Wash your hands before and after you handle them; you don't want them to smell any food on your hands that might be appealing to them, and think of your fingers as snackies. Noodle's bitten me once, because I reached into his tank to fix something while I thought he was still eating and my hands still smelled like mouse tea from warming up his food. He was not, in fact, still eating. It did not hurt. He now knows that I'm not actually edible.

Scoop him up very gently. Don't chase after him and try to drag him out if he doesn't want to come out. USE BOTH HANDS. Make him feel comfortable and safe, and he'll probably loop his tail around a finger or your wrist to try to hold on. My dude is about 4' at this point, so he loops around my wrist a couple times, or sprawls out across my arms and hangs out. The littler they are, the speedier and more nervous. They are entirely muscle, and are surprisingly strong, so don't be alarmed if he wraps himself around your fingers and holds on if he's not feeling stable!

You will, inevitably, get pooped/musked on (especially initially). It is very stinky, but it washes out easily. I would actually recommend not putting your little dude back in his tank right after he musks, because he'll associate that with a way to get out of being held. If he stops moving and you see that little tail go up, hold him over a sink or trash can or a tissue or something bc Disaster Is About To Strike.

When he's getting ready to shed, he'll hide for like a week; Noodle is easy to tell that he's getting ready to go into shed, because he dulls down to a browner shade of orange from his normal vibrancy, but if your little dude's eyes "blue" over (it's what it sounds like, as they don't have eyelids and basically form a skin over their eyes that makes them blue and opaque), he's going to shed soon. He cannot see very well in this state, and would VERY vastly prefer to be left alone unless it's an emergency (and don't feed him until after he sheds!) The shed process usually takes a week or so-- he'll go back to looking normal after his blue period, and then shed a few days later. After that, you're free to handle him again.

Also, don't freak out if you don't see your snake out and about constantly-- they love burrowing and tunneling, and make lots of little paths in their substrate. The general rule of thumb is that a hidden corn snake is a happy corn snake; they're not stressed and trying to escape.

#looneythin #hello! this is probably WAY more info than you were looking for but as someone who started off very nervous around snakes #and now just kind of walks around with one or the other hanging off me when i'm just puttering around my apartment #i like to help where i can! #snakes #corn snakes