Yes, corn snakes bite, but rarely will a corn snake show aggression. Corn snakes do have teeth that are all like fishhooks and reclined towards the back of the mouth. These teeth are designed to hold onto their prey items and makes it near impossible to escape a corn snakes grip.

We always get asked if a corn snake bite hurt. This is difficult to say 100% because there are 2 different types of snake bite.

First is the defensive strike, this is a warning from the snake saying back off away from me. This type of bite does not hurt much at all, you will bleed from the bite, but this looks worse than it actually is. The pain from a defensive bite is minimal and you will barely know it happened. We promise that a bee sting hurts a hell of a lot more than any corn snake bite.

Secondly is the food response, this happens more so when the owner is careless when defrosting mice and put their person too close to a hungry corn snake. This bite is different because when the corn snake bites, it will not let go straight away like a defensive bite, they assume you are the meal that is being defrosted in the background. These bites hurt a little more as the teeth remain in the skin and moving the snake causing a little bit of tender feeling.

If a snake was to do a food response bite, pulling the snake off by its body is by far the worst thing you could possibly do. The fishhook like teeth must be taken out first, so gently pinch each side of the corn snakes jaw, push the snake further into the bite and this will remove the teeth from the wound. Snakes will usually realise and open the mouth wide, so you are freed.

The good news about a corn snake bite is the reduced likelihood of getting an infection. Corn snake’s saliva causes blood to go thin and for a short duration stop blood for clotting. This works in our favour because most of the germs are pushed out with the blood. This is not enough to cause any serious damage or harm; it usually bleeds for around 1-2 minutes before stopping.

Do Corn Snakes Have Teeth?

Yes, corn snakes have many needle thin teeth, these work as hooks to hold their prey. The biggest misunderstanding is that a snake’s teeth is designed to inflict damage, this is far from the true.

A corn snake is a constrictor, when it kills the prey, it is from their body wrapping around them a squeezing as hard as the snake possibly can.

The teeth just hold on so if the rodent slips out of the constriction, they still are not getting away from a corn snake.

1 Comment

  1. Liliana Condoir

    I love Corn Snakes

    Reply

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