Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello! i have a 5 year old male cali kingsnake which ive had for about 4 months now. he's a very picky eater which i was told about when i got him. i can only get him to take small 'fluff' mice which are black/grey in colour. he won't touch white mice and he won't take anything bigger. he won't even take rat pups. is there really a difference with the colour or is he being extra fussy?

thanks!

Claire

My friend has this one Florida king that is around 5 1/2 feet long. He is quite fussy also, as he only eats fuzzy/hopper size mice that are darker in color, much like your snake. I have tried to help his snake eat larger mice, but it seems it won't even consider them lol. I am not sure how to help you out, as i guess it is quite costly to keep feeding your snake multiple rodents if it only wants fuzzies and is a large snake. It may help if you could order some frozen fuzzy mice to save money. If you can, find a dealer that has dark colored mice. Good luck-Zach
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Zach Lim
Carnivorous Plant Grower and Herper
http://www.geocities.com/sf_snakes/index.html

My adult Sinaloan milksnake recently lapsed into that sort of behavior... I fed her a bunch of pinkies (just to get them out of the freezer), and suddenly, all she wants to eat are pinkies and fuzzies. I finally got her to switch to f/t rat pups by sewing a pinky onto the nose of the f/t rat pup... she ate the pinky, and swallowed the rat right after it. For the next few feedings, I smeared pinky guts on the rat pup, and she ate those right up. Within the next couple feedings, she caught on that rats pups were food, and started eating them unscented. You should be able to get your Cali king to eat the same way.

Nate

Hi Claire.

We have a breeding pair of Florida Kings & while the male has always eaten well the female has been, at times, a pain in our butts.

When we first got them, we offered her mice, rats, lizards (the little Cuban ones you see running around down here in FL), & even frogs. The ONLY thing we could get her to eat were water snakes. Talk about a pain in the butt, spending days off on the rivers trying to catch them so she'd eat....we finally had a herper take her for a while & he finally got her to eat by taking one of the eggs (after babies were out) from her last litter & rubbed the yoke on a small mouse. She ate it! Now, that's how we get her eating when she becomes temperamental. We save the old eggs & freeze them. After we rub a couple she goes back to eating them plain. Or we rub chicken yoke on a mouse for her.

I know you have a male but maybe you could find a breeder in your area that would save some hatched eggs for you?

Good luck & hope it helps.

Terri

There is a technique out there called "priming" often used to switch a snake from live to F/T mice. You could also try it with your snake. Here is a quote from proexotics.com:

"You can "prime" your snake by feeding two meals in one sitting. Go with feeders that are 50-60% of the regular weekly size, one live (ugh!) or fresh killed, and one thawed. Feed your regular meal first, and then pay attention. A smaller prey item should be consumed pretty quickly (that’s the "prime", and that is when you pounce. Immediately after the snake has swallowed the first item (allow for that full "get in the stomach" stretch), offer the thawed rodent to your snake. Snakes are instinctive feeders, and it is hard for the animal to shut off the triggered feeding response. Your animal should snap up the second item with gusto. Anyone that has handled their snake too soon after feeding (sometimes an hour or two!) will be familiar with this instinctive strike. Your hand doesn’t smell like food, but dagnabbit, that snake is raring to go, and any old target will do! Make that target your thawed mouse, and you are good to go.

Follow the two in one primer plan for three or four weeks. For the fifth week, offer a full sized, high quality thawed feeder, and watch your previously stubborn animal snap it up without a second thought. The slightly different smell, or flavor, of the thawed feeder will be old news to your animal by now, switch made, problem solved."

So you could try feeding a dark fuzzy, then a white fuzzy immediately after... or a small mouse, then a bigger mouse after. It might not work but hell, its worth a shot.

Great idea! We've used this one too but it had slipped my mind.

Temp them with caviare & slip them ground chuck. LOL