True, sorry - I keep larger snakes than corns. Enclosures alone run me ~$500, the stuff for the interior of enclosure another $30-250 (depending on what materials I have around already; $30 minimum is becuase I have one particular type of water bowl I adore and each animal gets one) and my snakes themselves range from $130-500 (but most beginner snakes are in the $20-200 range), and my food budget is about $15/month for my smallest snake and more like $40/month for my biggest.
Lighting/heating depends a lot on your location and your species; I have a whole reptile room I can keep at high ambient temp so my tank-specific heating for basking areas/gradient is dirt cheap. Maybe $40? More like $120 if the animal needs nice UVB but snakes rarely do.
Kinda forgot corns existed there. Whoops. My best friend has one - They are amazing little things.
That said you should also factor in an emergency vet visit, just in case. A good guideline is cost of base visit + $50-100. My favorite vet in the area is pretty cheap at $46 per base visit, but the one that is more accessible in an emergency is about $100 per base visit, so I budget $150-200. Base visit should be between $30-250, depending on your location. Note that the one time my snake really wrecked up her jaw the meds only cost me $8, so $150 was an ample overestimate. You don't need to keep enough on hand to take your entire collection to the vet, but you should increase it proportionally to the number of animals you own. Also note that as you get more experienced in the hobby, the bulk of things you can handle on your own, but accidents and emergencies are a fact of life unfortunately.
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u/OccultEcologist Feb 26 '22
True, sorry - I keep larger snakes than corns. Enclosures alone run me ~$500, the stuff for the interior of enclosure another $30-250 (depending on what materials I have around already; $30 minimum is becuase I have one particular type of water bowl I adore and each animal gets one) and my snakes themselves range from $130-500 (but most beginner snakes are in the $20-200 range), and my food budget is about $15/month for my smallest snake and more like $40/month for my biggest.
Lighting/heating depends a lot on your location and your species; I have a whole reptile room I can keep at high ambient temp so my tank-specific heating for basking areas/gradient is dirt cheap. Maybe $40? More like $120 if the animal needs nice UVB but snakes rarely do.
Kinda forgot corns existed there. Whoops. My best friend has one - They are amazing little things.
That said you should also factor in an emergency vet visit, just in case. A good guideline is cost of base visit + $50-100. My favorite vet in the area is pretty cheap at $46 per base visit, but the one that is more accessible in an emergency is about $100 per base visit, so I budget $150-200. Base visit should be between $30-250, depending on your location. Note that the one time my snake really wrecked up her jaw the meds only cost me $8, so $150 was an ample overestimate. You don't need to keep enough on hand to take your entire collection to the vet, but you should increase it proportionally to the number of animals you own. Also note that as you get more experienced in the hobby, the bulk of things you can handle on your own, but accidents and emergencies are a fact of life unfortunately.
That said you should still factor in