Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello! i just purchased my very first snake yesterday. i've had bearded dragons so i'm not new to reptiles, but i know snakes are not the same as beardies so i need some advice from those who have had snakes. i've done some looking at care sheets online and so far my setup is this:

right now baby kingsnake is in 35g tall tank (i have 50 long tank for when she gets bigger)
paper towel substrate (i bought some aspen bedding today but don't know how to use it)
shallow water dish
log with fake plant
half log cave thing
basking light (used digital thermometer to check temps = under light = 95, rest of cage = 85

i fed her (i'm calling it a her, i don't really know) a pinky mouse today around noon. frozen pinky that i thawed out. she ate right away, took less than 45 seconds for mouse to disapear.

i guess what i'm looking for is some advice, but also i was wanting someone who is online and has aim or yahoo messenger so that i can chat and ask all my many questions and get immeadiate feedback. my aim is qhcanctrchica and my yahoo is crazyhorsegirl44. i'll be on for a couple of hours and then later tonight around 8pm central. any help is much appreciated.

> right now baby kingsnake is in 35g tall tank (i have 50 long tank
> for when she gets bigger)

35g should be adequate for a very long time.

> paper towel substrate (i bought some aspen bedding today but
> don't know how to use it)

I prefer to use substrate made from coconut shavings. It comes in bricks. You put the brick in a 5 gallon bucket with hot water, leave it overnight.

Next day, you use a colander to scoop the expanded substrate out and drain (back into the bucket), squeeze out as much water as you can, and put it into another bucket. Leave the other bucket outside where it is sunny for a few days (mixing it every morning as the top will dry faster than bottom).

The reason I like it so much - my kingsnakes like to dig in it, and I since the bricks are compressed, I can buy a bunch at a time without needing storage. One brick should be enough for your 35 gal tank.

Kingsnakes do fine with just newspaper, but for a display tank (sounds like what you have) this stuff looks a lot better.

> shallow water dish

How shallow?
I really recommend a water dish large enough for your snake to completely submerge. My kings rarely completely submerge, but they do sometimes before they shed.

> log with fake plant
> half log cave thing
> basking light (used digital thermometer to check temps = under
> light = 95, rest of cage = 85

I'm using light bulbs myself for three of my snakes, one I use thermal tape under his cage. I hear though that heat tape under the cage is actually better.

I do know that you have to be careful with light bulbs - you need it to be caged. Snakes don't have the same pain responses that mammals do, and will sometimes become burned before they move when they crawl up against the bulb.

where do you get those coconut brick things?

um, the dish is about 1/2" deep. i haven't seen her go in it yet though.

should i be feeding in seperate enclosure? how do you feed? i just held out the pinky mouse and she just grabbed it.

do you need to supllement the pinky mice in any way? i know with bardies you have to dust superworms with calcium and vitamins, do you do any of this with pinkies?

I feed mine in the tank where they live.
I feed them live mice - I know some argue frozen is better, because a live mouse can bite the snake - it has never been a problem with me. With captive bred or acclimated WC snakes, often you can hold the mouse by the tail, and the snake will take it that way. A live rodent should never be in a snake cage unattended - and shouldn't be in there for more than a half hour - if he doesn't eat it quickly, he probably won't, removing it and trying later sometimes works.

But if yours is eating f/t might as well stick with that.

I've never used any vitamins etc. with snakes. I've heard of people adding calcium to mice before they feed a female they are going to breed, it would be interesting to see a study done on how that effects quantities of eggs layed and hatch rates. Personally I think they get enough calcium from the bones of their prey, but I don't know.

When I had alligator lizards, we would dust the crickets with vitamins - but then one day while I was playing with one, he took a bite from some spinach leaf that was left on the kitchen table. We stopped dusting crickets with the expensive vitamins and just made leafy veggies available - and the lizards did just fine.

I suspect your king will be just fine with mice. Mine always have been.

While I agree that coconut bark is a decent substrate, aspen is excellent too. I wouldn't suggest that she throw out her aspen. It comes pretty compacted too, and doesnt need to be soaked. I'm definitely one that doesnt suggest feeding live prey (live pinkies are OK). I had a mouse that was being constricted by my king puncture my snake's eye with it's claw. At least stun or pre-kill the mouse. There are two problems with feeding snakes in their enclosures. One problem is that they might injest some of the substrate, the other problem is that they will develop a feeding response whenever a hand goes into their enclosure and they may bite.

The swallowing substrate is possibly a valid point, probably depends upon the substrate. I certainly wouldn't suggest it with pine bark, but I don't like using pine bark anyway.

With pinkies, I have a tray in the tank that I put them on.

The biting I don't think is - maybe mine don't because I handle them often, more often than I feed them.

My experience (from when I was younger) - I only got bit by snakes if they were recently WC and had not tamed up, or I had recently been dealing with rodents (we bred rabbits for our pythons).

Once - my six foot burmese python had its upper jaw above my eyebrow and its lowe jaw below my lower lip. It was quite cool actually. That happened because I had cleaned the rabbit cages before some guests came over, and the guests wanted to see the snake. They were rather impressed with the bite, and how calmy I handled it (I was more worried about the snake than me) but decided they weren't going to keep any ...

The pythons we fed in the bathtub (easier to clean up), but for smaller snakes, we always fed them in cage - for snakes that cooperated, we'd hold the tale of the rodent, allowing them to get a clean bite and constriction.

Congratulations on your new snake. Care sheets are great, a good book is better. The General Care and Maintenance of Common Kingsnakes by David Perlowin is a good one. 35 gal may be too big for a baby, they feel more comfortable in smaller enclosures, and 35 gal is probably as big as you'll ever need. The 50 long will make a nice display tank for an adult however. Aspen bedding is great. Just fill the tank a few inches deep with it. Your snake will love to build tunnels in it if it's deep enough. Your water dish should be deep enough for your snake to soak in. Most of mine don't like to soak, but some do before a shed. Two hiding places are important, and it looks like you have that covered.

Now here's where I think you're going wrong, your temperatures and heat source. Kingsnakes don't need basking lights like your beardies and some snakes do. It's better to heat your tank from underneath using an under tank heating pad. Use either the type you can get at a pet store, or you can even use the drug store variety. The drug store type has a a high, medium, low setting or you can buy a lamp dimmer at a hardware store to control temps with the pet store style under tank heaters. The heating pad should only cover about 1/4 to 1/3 of the tank, just place it to one side. Place one of the hides over the heating pad, and place one of the hides and the water dish on the far (cooler) side. The air temperature is not what is really important (room temp is fine), it is the substrate (aspen) temperature that's important. If you have an inexpensive digital thermometer, place the probe in the warm hide. It should be in the mid 80's or so. The hide on the cool side should be in the low to mid 70's (close to room temps). Your snake will have a choice of temps. Your temps now are too hot. Remember too that kingsnakes love to hide and are largely nocturnal. They may only be active when hungry, at night, or when uncomfortable (temp or humidity problems).

Greg

i agree with you on the size of the enclosure issue.. i keep fresh hatchlings in my small shoebox rack 9" x 5' x 3", then i move them into my shoebox rack regular sized plastic shoe boxes 12" x 6" x 5" Then i move them to one of my sweater box racks.. i think the snake feels safer, it's easier to clean, and over the yaers i have found out the hard way that hatchlings find their way out of larger enclosures..

~ Mike Russo

IMHO the large 35G enclosure is fine - it has two hiding places.
The biggest issue is it takes more energy to adequately heat. But it also allows more range for thermoregulation.

I'd be interested in any technical literature to the contrary. There may be some I'm just not aware of.

here's a pic of "her"

i think she's a sonoran desert king, but i'm not the expert. she's 17" long and 35 grams.

Very nice, she is a Desert King, and at her size she is proabably ready for fuzzy mice.

Greg

Congrats!!
-----
Diego

Diego & Tiffany's Zoo:
SNAKES
3.4 Corn Snakes (Different morphs)
1.0.0 Boa Constrictor
0.1.0 Dumeril's Boa
0.1.0 Tangerine Honduran Milksnake
1.0.0 Honduran Milksnake
0.1.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake
1.1.0 Ball Pythons
0.0.1 Ribbon Snake
1.1.0 Rosy Boas (Mexican & Mid Baja)
0.1.0 Pueblan Milksnake
1.2.0 Kenyan Sand Boas
1.0.0 Western Hognose
1.0.0 Albino San Diego Gopher Snake
0.1.0 Indonesian Dwarf Pacific Boa
1.1.0 Gray Banded Kingsnakes (River Road)
0.1.0 Desert Kingsnake
LIZARDS
1.0.0 Frilled Dragon
3.1.0 Bearded Dragons (2 Normal, 1 RedXGold, 1 Citrus)
0.1.0 Eastern Collared Lizard
0.1.0 Merauke Blue Tongue Skink
1.0.0 Turquoise Sunburst Veiled Chameleon
1.0.3 Leopard Geckos
1.1.0 Yellow Niger Uromastyx
1.1.0 Green Anoles
1.1.0 Bahama Anoles
FROGS
2.2.0 Southern Bell Frogs
1.0.1 Green Tree Frogs
0.0.2 Striped Walking Frogs
0.0.3 White's Tree Frogs