Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, so here is the scoop... I had a clutch of California Kingsnakes hatch at the end of May. Two of the ten babies ate F/T with no issues. The remaining eight are being a huge pain in the neck!

I have tried so many different ways of offering food to these guys and they don't even check it out! They treat the prey like it's nothing more than a piece of bedding. Here is what I have tried:

F/T - left in bin
F/T - with snake in deli cup
F/T - brained
F/T - brained with snake in deli cup
F/T - chest sliced open
F/T - just the head
Live - left in bin
Live - with snake in deli cup
F/T - lizard (house gecko) scented with snake in deli cup

Out of all of these attempts I had ONE snake accept the lizard scented pink. The rest are still ignoring it. WTF am I doing wrong here? I didn't think Cal Kings were supposed to be THIS picky!?

The bin had aspen for the first month, and then I tried switching to paper towel. They have a hide and a water dish. The hot spot is 83F and the cool side is 75F. I have seen them sit on both ends of the tub... not cramming on one side or another constantly.

Last year I had a few picky ones, but all of them gave in to the live pinks... not this year though.

Any other ideas you guy can offer to get these babies eating will be greatly appreciated. I'd try putting them in a short brumation cycle, but just isn't cool enough to try that yet.

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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Try, hiding a F/t pink under a small piece of drift wood or something, so its hunting instincts will kick in. I've had prety good luck with that method.
Good luck, Bob
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R.Bichlers Colubrids
http://www.webspawner.com/users/rbichler/index.html

Try live sceloporus.
Worked for me last year with similar issue.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Uta would work too, just be carefull feeding wild caught lizards can carry mites that would be transfered to you snakes.

Scott D

Yeah - nut for whatever reason, I could not get scenting to work. Live - they pounded live (both kings and corns). After 3 or 4 feeding they then fairly readily switched to rodents.

I'd personally rather risk an internal parasite or three than deal with a snake that is on the brink of starvation.

Some breeders just euthanize the difficult feeders, which is why so many captive bred lines feed well in captivity.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Fully with you, I'd rather risk the parasites internal or external then risking the chance losing the snake/snakes.

Scott D

Hakuna Matata

Try a moist hide on the heated end. Helps with some baby kings.

I had this happen with a high desert local clucth of Cal king where nothing I tried worked. I ended up cooling them somewhat (cool nights) for a few months. After that, they fed on regular thawed pinks with no scenting or tricks. They grew up to be troopers.
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Mark

Back when I bred cal kings, I was fortunate to have only a few not eat right away, out of the ones I hatched. I learned a trick from a friend, when this would happen to him.

Take a shed snake skin, then put it in a ziploc freezer bag, and just store it in the freezer. Then, when you would have a baby king that would not eat a pinky, I would thaw out a pinky, and put it in the bag with the snake skin in it, moving it around the skin and basically meshing the two together so that the shed snake skin scent would be on the pinky.

Then, I would feed the pinky to the snake and BAM!!
I only had to do this at least two or three times before the picky snakes would start eating unscented pinks on a normal basis.

Hope this helps!!

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Genesis 1:1

Thanks to everyone that posted suggestions for me! I like the shed skin idea, and I think I'll try that next. I'm not sure if I can get the live fence lizards that someone else suggested, but I'll look around for them.

Thanks again! Hopefully I can get these boogers eating soon. If not, they'll go down for brumation in a few months.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com