Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a young cal king, he's doing very well. I've had him since october and he's already grown maybe 6in in length. Anyways, this is more of a curious question. Since the main diet is mice, is there anything I should be doing to ensure that he is getting all of the vitamins and nutrition he needs? I will probably talk to a vet about this, but of course any advice from the more experienced keepers is always a plus. My question would be thus: Should I vary his diet, and if so, with what? Occasional lizard pherhaps? Also, should I periodically feed vitamin supplements with the food items? I have a bit of experience with different animals, and since this snake is actually my son's 4th b-day present, I just want to make sure that I am providing everything I possibly can. Thanks for any advice.
Tony

In my opinion and from all I have read it is not beneficial or necessary to add vitamins supplements to your snake's diet.. I do use calcium powder when I bring my females out of hibernation to help with egg production but that is all that I do.

Also, there is no need to vary a snake's diet. By offering an occasional lizard (wild caught or store bought) you would only be increasing the risk of transferring unwanted parasites to your animals.

Good Luck!

Mike Russo

Most people, myself included, don't see any difference in growth or health of snakes that are fed a varried diet vs those that are fed just mice. The rodent is a nice complete package of pretty much everything the snakes need.

I do use a calcium suppliment and it is important to use one that also contains vit D3 so that they can absorb that calcium. I use it somewhere around once per month for most of the collection, and every other feeding for breeding females.

Since I have vitamins for some of my other reptiles I occasionally (a few times a year) give some to my snakes. Why not right?

The only time I regularly use vitamins and calcium is with very small snakes that are only eating pinkies. This is just personal preference because I don't think that pinkies are very nutritious. I have no data or comparison to show if it makes any difference.

There was actually some data posted on the gray banded king forum a few months back regarding calcium supplementation in the weeks prior to ovulation through egg laying...

If i remember correctly the data showed an increase in viable egg production and an increase in hatch rate with fewer spinal abnormalities (kinks).. Which is good news when breeding Alterna!

I remember thinking the results of the study were very impressive... Although, i don't remember the exact numbers well enough to quote them out of my head...

~ Mike Russo

That sounds like something I would like to read. Do you have a link to it?

It makes perfect sense really. I mean, egg shell production takes an obscene amount of calcium. I don't know if it has ever been studied in snakes but I know a bit about chicken reproduction. A chicken egg goes from no shell to completely shelled in just a few hours. The crazy thing is, that the amount of calcium put into the egg shell is physically more than can be disolved in the chickens blood stream at any one time!!! They have some pretty wild adaptations to go along with that.

Now granted chicken eggs are much more calcified then snake eggs, and snakes don't lay an egg a day, but they don't consume as much either.

I have always used calcium for my breeding females and I will continue to, but I would love to read that study to back it up.

cheers

If you don't over dose I see no harm in using them. I use RepCal and Herpetovite weekly for breeding adults from the time they come up till eggs are lain. Everyone else gets the supplements monthly. Before doing this I used to get several eggs every year that were partially calcified. I haven't seen this since nor have I had any problems with egg impaction. Though neither of these were big problems for me that they no longer happen is in my opinion significant.