Corn Snakes in Captivity (Professional Breeders Series)

For my 21st birthday, my mother gave me money to buy a pet. After much research, and looking at my college's pet rules, I decided upon a corn snake because of their tameness, beutiful patterns, and relatively small size. I went down the road to Blue Ridge Reef and Pets, a wonderful store, and bought a young bloodred and a Critter Cage, which I had been told was escape-proof. The owner of the store also gave me a copy of this book. Well, I had been gathering other supplies as I could before buying my new snake, including a very pretty hollow plastic branch which she could climb and hide in. I had been watching her explore the cage for an hour, and decided to remove her store-cage from the Critter Cage, and introduce her to her new stick. I wandered off for and hour, and when I returned, she was gone. So much for escape-proof. I read the Escape chapter in this book three time, searched everywhere, set out masking tape traps along every wall, and slept with a flashlight under my pillow. 43 hours after the escape, at 2 AM to be precise, I woke to a rustling underneath my bed. I pulled out the flashlight, and there she was trapped in the corner and wrapped in tape. The tape came right off, and she went in the now hopefully escape-proofed cage (locks and bricks do wonders). She was small and a moving target. I don't think I ever would have found her without the advice from this book. I highly recommend it to all new corn snake owners. I also advise them to be absolutely paranoid about their corn snake escaping.

If you're only going to buy one book on cornsnakes before purchasing a new pet, make it this one. Don goes over every detail of their care and maintenance in great detail. There is a lot of great information here, and the terminology used isn't overly technical. A wonderful book for beginners, and a great resource for those who have been keeping corns for a while.

In recent years, a number of corn snake books have come along, including manuals from such notable folks as Kathy & Bill Love as well as Patricia & Richard Bartlett. I have no particular basis for preferring Soderberg's book except for my experiences talking with him and buying or trading snakes with him, and that I think the information is excellent. Hence, this is a "slightly biased" review. Soderberg provides thorough and careful guidance for the beginner throughout the book. For example, in chapter one he provides a checklist, including researching their care, getting the cage, talking to corn snake owners, getting a supply of frozen rodents, etc. before choosing a corn snake. It is not just a book for beginners. I learned things or was challenged to think further about things as I read the book. For example, he discusses a rationale for using perlite along with vermiculite as an incubation medium. I had not heard of using this combination. He also talks about avoiding chlorinated tap water in water bowls. Maybe some have thought about this, but I had not, and it makes sense to me that using filtered water would be preferable. There are chapters on selecting the corn snake, housing, receiving your corn snake, feeding and watering, shedding, breeding, genetics, escapes, and diseases & disorders. Each chapter includes information that would be needed by the first-time corn snake keeper, and additional information for more advanced herpetoculturists. The book never seems to "talk down" to the reader, nor does it leave specialized terms like dysecdysis (problems with shedding) or dystocia (inability to pass an egg) undefined. While Soderberg goes into considerable detail about what is necessary to breed corn snakes and successfully incubate eggs, he does not go into detail about how to produce particular color morphs. It is probably true that a full discussion of Mendelian genetics was beyond the scope of the book. What he did do was provide a link to a program on the internet referred to as "Mick's Progeny Predictor," which allows the user to enter details about the parent snakes and get a prediction about the kinds of offspring that will be produced. In the chapter on diseases, Soderberg covers the range of typical problems, including mites, respiratory infections, and digestive problems. He has a great discussion of regurgitation syndrome and how to re-introduce feeding in its aftermath. My slightly biased recommendation: get this book! (from a review published in the April 2009 issue of the Cross Timbers Herpetologist, newsletter of the DFW Herpetological Society)

I purchased this book in my research for information before purchasing my first snake with my grandson. This book is a MUST for anyone looking for information on care, feeding, housing, breeding and anything else about corn snakes. After reading this book I purchased our first corn snake from the author. It answered just about all of my questions and the author helped me with everything else so I was really prepared when our snake arrived. Interesting book even if you don't own a snake!