Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got my 1st king. It’s 14in long. Black and off-white bands.
Some ?s. is better to feed live or die (thawed) I plan on rising my own mice. Right now the king is in 10 gal tank. The king is little bit thick then a ink pen. Yesterday I feed a pinkie. How big of feed can I feed.

Here is a pic. But it’s not good one. Need a new camera.

Congrats on your first king. Feeding live pinkies and small fuzzies would be OK, they are harmless and pose no threat to your snake. Any mice bigger, like hoppers and adult mice I would use frozen mice. Alive these mice could cause your snake some major injuries.

Scott D

Of course nobody is saying this WILL happen, but the possibility of serious injury is VERY REAL!. I've seen some bad injuries from this myself many times over the years, not to mention when this DOES happen, it often frightens the snake into associating future mouse scent with it getting hurt, and then can be extremely hesitant in taking them afterwards, and sometimes leads to the snake refusing them completely.

Also, freezing kills all parasites within the rodent prey, and is therefore safer for the snake to ingest. If you DO offer it live rodents later on, I would suggest "whacking"(killing) them first, this way, they cannot bite the snake.

best regards, ~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

awesome pic and snake there.

Scott D

0.1 Deming NM Aberrant Sonran bullsnake WC
1.2 Alabama Black kings
2.2 Deming NM Desert kings WC
3.0 South Florida kings hypos
1.1 Harris County Texas Lemon Speckleds
1.1 Louisiana Speckleds WC
1.1 South Carolina Easterns
1.1 Mex Black kings
1.1 Hatteras County Outer Banks kings
1.0 Thayeri buckskin
1.1 Sinaloan milks
1.1 West Langtry grays
2.2 Arizona Mtn kings
1.1 New Mexico milks
More to come!

n/p
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"