So I’ve had a corn snake for two years now and I think it’s time to upgrade her cage into something real nice. Im curious if anyone has any good sources to make her enclosure more natural looking. I wanna try to move away from the wood chips since they kinda remind me of a playground and not a snake habitat.
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You could put sanitized leaf litter over the aspen perhaps, as a top/dressing layer, for a more naturalistic look? Would that work for a corn? I don’t see why it might not.
Then you could go the usual route with background and enrichment hides, like wood and faux rocks and things. What’s your budget like? Fancy stuff? or DIY and frugal?
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Josh’s Frogs has all kinds of decor. Cork bark, moss, leaf litter, real and fake plants, etc. I got loads of cork bark and moss in various forms from them when I did my blood python’s adult enclosure. They’ve got all kinds of stuff.
If you want more natural-looking substrate, you could try something like coco husk or topsoil. I assume either of those would be fine for corn snakes, though I don’t know that much about their care requirements.
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I’m more of a DIY and frugal guy. All the stuff in her cage has been picked and sterilized from the backyard. The leaves are a good idea and I think the pet store has a bag of them for cheap.
What are “enrichment hides”? Is that like a more elaborate hide or something?
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Thanks for the recommendation, I had an idea where to get leaves but moss was one I didn’t know where to get
That’s what I was thinking, hopefully that Josh’s also sells coco nut husks too. It should be fine, but I’ll do some more digging to make sure.
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Yeah just like… hides that might be more than an upturned bowl, which are likely to look more “naturalistic”. I have some that are made of guinea pig huts I covered in grout and sealed with a reptile safe sealant.
I do recommend looking into how others have used expanding foam, Drylok, and grout as ways to construct rock-like looking backgrounds, as those can get great results. I’ve seen some people like SerpaDesigns on youtube show their methods for making a rock background for reptile enclosures (he has one build he did for a bearded dragon), and a lot of other youtubers have tutorials on good methods.
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Ah, ok lol I guess I already them. She has two tree bark hides that she can go in-between. I’ll check out that SerpaDesigns and see if I can make her a fake rock hide instead of more bark.
Thanks for your help man
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@deltavesper Hey there and welcome to the forum! So glad you found us because this is a great place to be for just about anything!
I wanted to add that you can hit the dollar store, hobby lobby, or any other craft store for cheap greenery, diy vine material and stuff like that especially if you have an imagination! Also if you do order anything from Josh’s it will be good quality! Oops I hope I can say that???
And btw we love pictures here so if you want to show off your corn we would greatly appreciate it! And a name to go with the picture?
Again welcome and we would love to see your end product!!! 
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Thanks for the warm welcome. I was just thinking of hitting the dollar story for plants, lol. Don’t think I’d be able to take care of live plants.
I’ll have to create another post to tell her story (it’s been a lot of fun), but her name is Osha.
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I use a mix of cypress mulch and coco husk for our two corns. Holds humidity well, looks good aesthetically, and they can burrow/root around in it.
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Ok then we will wait patiently Lol!
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The dollar store is great for fake plants! I went into my local Dollar Tree not really expecting to find much…only to discover that they had an entire aisle full of fake plants! Most were on the smaller side, so I ended up going to the craft store to get some bigger pieces, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much the dollar store had.
Craft stores like Michael’s or Hobby Lobby often have lots of fake plants, and various types of moss as well, though I’d stay away from any moss that’s dyed, just because I wouldn’t fully trust it to be reptile-safe.
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