What is a good snake for beginners?

Question

What is an easy-to-keep, small snake? Preferably not a corn snake, but something a bit unusual. Id like a species that can be kept in a very small tank, is diurnal and can be handled. Thanks.

Answer 1

How small do you want it to be?

You can try a sand boa. Easy to feed (good feeding response but you can't feed the snake on aspen or sand substrate to prevent impaction), handle and so on. But it's nocturnal and spend most of its time hiding inside the substrate. So you would feel like there's nothing inside the cage. Russian Sand boa is a pretty small snake that you can house it in a 10 gallon tank

Hope this helps ^^

Answer 2

A California King Snake or a Corn Snake.

Answer 3

gater snakes are a good small snake and can be fed fish     ( this means no frozen mice in the freezer) or something slightly diffrent you might try rough green snakes, theese are 1 of only a couple of species that eat insects (crickets) they are a fair bit smaller than garters and bright green, being a lot smaller than most snakes you can usualy keep 3 or 4 of theese in comfort in a 24inch viv and they are cheap, £10-£20 each, both of theese species will need vitamin supplements, ask advice at your local rep shop, best of luck

Answer 4

Dont listen to the first answer for starters, a california king snake is NOT a good snake for beginners as they are very tempremental and you WILL be struck at. A garter snake is good for beginners as you can get used to defrosting the food if your a bit squeemish as their only fish and not mice. Otherwise a ball python is also a good beginner snake, but if you are going to get one remember that they grow large (8-10 feet) and need their tank spraying a lot! they also arent very good feeders. So id probably go with a garter snake

Answer 5

My parents got me a snake when I was nine, she was a corn snake.

They are good for first time pet owners. They taught me how to feed her, clean her, handle her etc!

Go for a corn snake, they are orange in colour and absolutely beautiful!  

Answer 6

My first snake was a ribbon Garter snake. Fantastic little snake and very easy to keep. My second was a corn snake. The most docile I would say is a Royal Python but can be very funny eaters. I think I would go with a corn snake. Can be a little snappy and I wouldn't get a baby, I would get one a couple of years old but preferably one that you can handle.

I don't know what you mean by "very small tank" The smallest tank I would recommend for a corn snake (adult) would be around 4 feet long by a foot deep.

Answer 7

depends where you live, because american snakes like corn snake can't be kept in australia etc. In australia a good snake is a woma python.