Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just hatched out 7 florida kings and none of them showed any interest in the live pinkies I offered them last night -- is there a "trick" for the first-time meal or do I just need to wait until after their first shed ? (they hatched nine days ago and I found the first sheds this morning)

I did move them all into separate/small containers for this feeding attempt so they were quite "disrupted" from their normal routines -- should I try placing pinkies in the main cage with all of them together and just watch the action closely so there are no feeding issues between two snakes, try thawed pinkies, split open thawed pinkies, try lizards, etc., or just re-try after this first shed?

I don't recall having any problems getting new-born getulas to eat in the past but it's been several years since I've tried so maybe I'm just being a little impatient.

Thanks...

Tim O.

most will eat a couple week after their first shed. Some will eat a few days after shed but the norm is they have to absorb (digest) their yolk before they get hungry.

Try in a week and if that does not work wait another week.
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

Thanks for the input -- will do...

Also, should I separate these hatchlings after this first shed to avoid them trying to make a meal out of each other or is this not an issue to be concerned about?

Yes you should definetly seprate the florida kings right now. They will eat each other as hathclings.

With adults it is a different story. I keep some of my adult floridana togther year round. The only time I seperate is when the female is already gravid because a male may keep her stressed by contunaully trying to court her and when a female lays the eggs can be eaten.

Of course you also have to be careful during feeding as each should be hand few on different sides of the cage. The only time feeding is a danger is after the males are done breeding. ZDuring the breeding season I just throw the mice in and the female eats and the males are off food. I feed frozen thawed as well so there is less stimulation at feeding time for a male.

That brings to another subject. The eggs. Florida king females will eat their own eggs. I make it a practice now to remove the eggs while a female is still laying. I think this is where some people who leave their females alone to lay end up thinking their reabsorbed. What in actuality they ate eat their own eggs. I have witnessed this incident more than a few times. Last year I palpitaed 3 females to regurge eggs they had just eaten but the eggs were damaged from the teeth and did not survive in each incident.
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

Thanks again for the input -- especially re: the female kings eating their own eggs. Both this year & last year, I caught a female king that looked gravid and in each case, there were "no eggs produced" (or so I thought). The one last year was particularly dissappointing since it was a large female (over 4 1/2 ft.) that was very robust/thick and so I thought it should/would lay tons of eggs.

I will most definitely keep a much closer eye on future females to try and head off this sort of thing.

Interesting related story -- in my youth, I was told (by a very experienced/skilled kingsnake collector) that you could put as many female florida kings together in the same cage as you wanted while waiting for eggs (and I had been over to this guy's house and seen literally piles of females in each tank/cage). Well, I've never caught very many in the same season but one year had two females of equal size together and came home one night to find one in the process of swallowing the other! I immediately forced it to give up its prize and, as the meal-snake was already dead, retrieved the near full-term eggs (but apparently they weren't quite far enough along as none of them made it). So, since then, no more female florida king room-mates for me...