Reptile & Amphibian Forums

we bought our kingsnake at a pet store and they said it was a baja king. we were looking up behavior things because he is a little mean and shakes his tail like he is a rattle snake. he is still a baby. i dont have a picture and cant find anything online. he is all black even his eyes but he has a very light and fine brownish line down his back. can u help us?

-courtney

Basically it's a naturally occuring melanistic form of the California Kingsnake from the southern Baja Peninsula of Mexico (hence Baja King). They were once considered they're own species/subspecie called "nitida". They're care is the same as any other common King.

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Ace

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

so, given that you know it's a common kingsnake, you should know that imitating a rattle snake is a pretty common defensive behavior for just about all snakes occuring in the NA rattlesnake range. So, don't worry. To make it a little bit tamer, the best advice is frequent gentle handling. Try not to approach it from behind or directly above, don't restrain it too much, and don't reinforce it's defensive behavior- that is, when it makes this show, confidently but gently handle it to teach it that those behaviors will not work. If it bites, it doesn't hurt at all unless the snake chews in in a feeding response, and even if it does, it's not very bad at all. But the most serious factor is just the snake getting used to it, so keep handling it for just 5-10 minutes a day regularly. As it grows, it will settle down. I've also seen an improvement in the behavior of my cal king come from feeding it in a separate place, like a large cardboard box, supervised of course. best of luck!
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-Chris
cdohna.googlepages.com
1.0.0 WC SD Gopher Snake, Max
1.0.0 CB Albino Banded Cal King, Manny
0.1.0 CB BRB, Mucalinda
0.1.0 CB BP, Maya