Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I fed my female intergrade speckled/holbrooki a brown snake yesterday. She sucked it down like a large noodle. I don't do that very often, just giving her a little treat.

Well, shortly after that I put my big docile male speckled in there like I have a few times already. They started doing their thing. I am pretty sure they've hooked up a few times already - whatever. So I left them for a couple hours.

I came back to find him as thick as a beer can. She was not quite as long as him, but probably weighed more.

Lesson learned - don't ever (again) feed snake to a king then introduce another king while the scent of snake is still around in the enclosure.

For those that have never fed snake to a king, it is a sight to behold. They turn into the devil at the first scent of it. Truly amazing, but unfortunately I lost one of my prettiest snakes.

A bad week got worse.........live and learn.

Matt

Damn that sucks. I feel your pain. I was cleaning one of my female acadia parish,louisiana speckled kings cages the other day and she bolted out of her cage like greased lightning and went behind my dresser and into the only hole in the wall I have in my snake room. The odds that she will find that same hole and come out are nill. Kevin Fisher

Yeah, I started the week by dealing with an escapee. Don't ask how that went (real bad). Well, I developed a great trap, and it worked like a charm. Unfortunately the cats somehow got into the trap and pulled out the snake and mauled it while it was stuck to glue paper. That was a little corn. I felt bad enough about that, then this happens. I got noone to blame but me.

I take a lot of pride in my husbandry. Let's just say I have been seriously humbled over the last week.....

I was just about to ask if you can house kings ofg the same size together, guess that is a no.slurp.

I just lost a snake myself (a great looking Honduran Milk picutred below), this is only the 4th time in 15 years I been so stupid, but it's 4 times too many (I recovered the other 3, but I did not have cats at the time).

Could you send me a picture of your snake trap? If not maybe reply to me with a description of it, so I can try the same thing?

I too have cats, and I fear they will get to the snake before me!

Please help if you can.

Thanks,
Rusty

RustinGreen@hotmail.com

Here is what I did.

I took a large box and cut a few small holes in the sides near the bottom.

I took a mouse trap glue board thing and put it in the middle of the larger box, taped in the center.

I put a fuzzy in the middle of the glue board. and a small dish of water next to it.

This way the snake could enter the larger box through the holes in the side, attempt to get the mouse and become stuck on the glue board.

Where I screwed up was that I didn't tape the large box closed well enough and the cats got inside and got the snake.

This seemed to be a good method of capture. Removing her took some vegetable oil and some patience, but not that difficult.

hope this helps.

Thanks a lot for the information, I'll let you know if I have any luck.

-Rusty

The lesson is more complicated then that. Its about understanding what hunger is and more specifically what it means to a snake. They do have different degrees of hunger, from kinda hungry, to starving to death.

The lesson is, do not allow a snake to become starving, then place another snake in with it. Simply put, make sure both snakes are not hungry. Then there is no need to eat the other snake.

There are all sorts of other ways to avoid this happening, but the above is the simplest easist way and most understandable way to avoid this happening.

Besides, feeding them or keeping them fedup, supports reproduction. It will only help your chances of success. Cheers

first let me state that im not trying to flame you or offend you.
but my question is why were you feeding your king a snake to begin with. their is no need to feed a king a snake accept to actually see it happen. i believe i read a post once where a fellow herper was feeding his snakes f/t mice and one day wanted to see it eat another snake so he got a garter and gave it to him, well after he gave it the garter the snake would no longer eat f/t mice all he wanted was other snakes after that. this can be a problem if garters are not available year round to you or expensive when ordering snakes for food all the time. it is interesting to see but you could introduce parasites or other diseases as well. please use this experience as a lesson learned all the way around. i learned a good lesson earlier this year as well with my sand boa. please take all advice on this and use it in the future. i am sorry for your loses it sucks to learn this way but that is how this hobby progresses.
adam
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hybrid breeders association
0.1.0 normal corn het hypo,anery
1.0.0 snow corn het hypo,anery,amel
1.0.0 amel corn unknown hets(4ft 8inch long)
1.0 sinacorn
1.1 kenyan sand boas
0.1 mbk
0.1 albino nelsons
0.0.1 snapping turtles
0.0.1 3 lined mud turtle

yesterday. My male was in shed, so I threw the female in with a new speckled I'd recently acquired. I ALWAYS try to watch the reaction of ophiophagous snakes when I place them together, at least for a few minutes-and I check on them often. In this case it's a good thing I did, for what initially looked like sexual interest quickly devolved into feeding behaviour! I intervened just in time-that male had her head and neck swallowed before i could seperate them! Luckily she wasn't seriously injured.

Brad Chambers

I know all the dangers involved in doing that. No offense to you or anyone, but - for me - learning is a lot more then studying history, and reading books/internet posts.

As far as the snake refusing mice/rats after eating snake - I'm not concerned at all - I can't speak for everyone, but my kings are garbage disposals. They'd eat chicken slices if I fed it to them. If they did refuse, oh well - I'd tackle that when it happened - and learn something else in the process. I do freeze any roadkill snake for a week or two before I feed it to help a bit with parasite potential.

Believe me, I don't doubt that I screwed up, but only in assuming a bit too much.

Later

Matt