Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My kids have a new California Kingsnake that is about 18" long. I have read feeding information and have seen that they will eat 1 to 6 pinkies a week. My question is how do you tell when or if they are still ready to eat more? They fed him this morning for the first time. How soon do people typically offer another pinkie?

Thanks
Craig

If they're 18 inches long already they can be eating larger mice. Fuzzies or Hoppers would be more appropriate. If you do offer the larger meal as I suggested it will make a more noticeable lump in the snakes belly. It should also poop a bit more solid, as I imagine if they're eating pinkies their poop may be quite runny. There's a lot of ways to offer a snake food as far as a feeding schedule. If they're just pets and you have no intention to, or are not in a hurry to breed them someday then a few small rodents once every 5 days or so should be fine. If the snakes last meal is still visible in its belly then you may want to wait a bit longer. Tom Stevens
-----
TomsSnakes.com

Toms right,I say a simple guide is 1.5 max girth of snake for food item so an 18" snake should be a small mouse.except if your experienced go either way on conditions. once again they are ectothermic (digestion) so dont feed a cold snake...C