Some wild caught kings, and certain subspecies of kingsnake do require the "split brain" technique to get them to eat mice, but California King, and I'm pretty sure Brooks, and Blotched kings are all very good at eating mice from the get go. I have 8 cal king eggs and 8 blotched king eggs incubating, and I expect that they will take pinkies from the beginning with little to no hassel.



Corn snakes and king snakes both eat pinkies when young. But Corn snakes don't STAY on pinkies, they will eat mice and even small rats as they mature. So you might find that a hatchling might not be a good purchase, but a yearling or a two year old snake might be perfect for you.



I'm sure some of the experts at more than the species I named can mention exactly which species of kingsnake is a picky mouse eater. But even those, if you purchase them after they are established on mice, will probably never have a sudden urge to resort to lizards.
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~Sasheena

Ground Snakes

Kit, Kaboodle, Tantilla, Tantillas, Lightning, Kinkee, Maple

JCP

Dreamer

Rosy

Castle

Kings

Licorice, Bishop, Queenie, Jester, Tigris, Euphrates

Pandora, Phantom

Lady

Corns

Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes

Tiger

Amulet

[ Hide Replies ]

• is it necessary to split open a mouses head to feed it to a kingsnake? - starmom, Tue Jun 10 21:03:57 2003
• In general... Nope.. (more) - Sasheena, Tue Jun 10 21:19:02 2003
• thanks for the info..........nt - starmom, Wed Jun 11 04:23:46 2003
• RE: is it necessary to split open a mouses head to feed it to a kingsnake? - meretseger, Wed Jun 11 05:31:50 2003