Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,
i have a 1/2 albino cal king 1/2 Mexican black kingsnake who's a little less than a year old now and I've been noticing for a while that it's head and neck are not growing quite as fast as it's body. I didnt think anything of it until today when my snake got stuck in a flower pot it likes to hide in, I came in the room and I saw it squirming around stuck in the hole on the bottom so I had to break him out with a pair of pliers. I fed him on Monday but there was no visible bulge, he just couldn't fit through. Has anyone ever heard of this? Could it be because he's a hybrid? I haven't gotten it sexed yet either in case that might matter. Thanks in advance for any help.

Well, the fact that it is an intergraded(crossed) snake doesn't have anything to do with it in this case, because the two subspecies you mentioned are VERY closely related, and also very similar in build, etc...

These snakes by nature tend to have indistinct head definition in relation to their stocky necks, which are VERY strong for over-powering their prey which they do exceptionally well.

Now, its head can easily give the appearance of being FAR too small for it's body if it is too overweight. But without a pic, it's impossible to say.

Anyway, these snakes normally have pretty small heads for their body shape/size anyway, so this appearance can easily be "magnified" if it is too over-weight sometimes, not that this is necessarily the case with yours.

best regards, ~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

Snakes are built strictly for moving forward, and their scales all face in a rearward direction to propel them forward. When snakes sometime crawl into a confined hole that has no give to it, and they don't back-up in time and they continue forward to try to escape, they can sometimes find themselves that they have went past the point of "no return" and become stuck.

Many times when a snake crawls into a tight spot, and is stubborn, it can be VERY dificult to get it reversed without damaging some of the scales when doing so. It must be done very slowly and methodically.....as you have apparently found out..LOL!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

Gill netting came to mind, as Doug metioned attemp to keep fwd motion to their dismay, i am sad to say back in Miami i had a Tropical fish farm for yearsbut one morning i found a DOA cornsnake entangled in the black monofilament bird net curtains i had for birds
this year in N. Fl. I had a resident coach whip that lived in and under my rodent room, who kept tab on wild rats hat came in , he also tried banging his head on the 1/2" hardware cloth with mice below ,Thant was FUNNY so i lift him from the rear and gently escorted him out the door and allowed him to slther tothe house. He too was found 50 yds away entangled i fish net dead in the sun and covered with ants,Please discard netting properly and use my experiences as a reminder ,OR just bash me now ,i do feel bad

Man, you ain't kiddin' Chris,...nets of all types often wreak havoc with wildlife of all kinds, especially when abondoned or discarded. I've even seen adult Iguanas with their bellies stuck in chain-link fences before that would SURELY have died if they weren't rescued. When found it had a horrible dark brown ring around the area that the chain-link was around. Luckily this particular one was found in time, but as you know, many other animal's aren't so lucky.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

it's not due to being a hybrid...
I am 100% sure it was due to the fact that he was fatter than the hole in the flower pot.....

??.....physics.......the square peg in round hole theory thingy....

LOL..........

I have found a wild garter actually stuck in a hole in a piece of plywood....it would have surely died had we not broken it free...

good luck...keep an eye on your hole's sizes.....

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well thanks for the physics lesson, but i was actually asking if being a hybrid might have caused his head to be small in relation to his body, thus allowing him to get stuck in the flower pot. obviously snakes don't get stuck in flower pots just because they are hybrids.

they aren't a hybrid, just an intergrade, IMO. That said, no, it isn't a part of the puzzle, it's simply a matter of too big a snake in too small a hole, something all the kingsnake fellahs often say they have a problem with, lol!

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Todd Hughes

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

So what's the difference between an integrade and a hybrid? Is it just that intergrade are crosses between more closely related animals?

Yes, intergrades are technically closely related "neighboring" subspecies that would naturally cross in the wild...i.e. an intergrade zone.

An Eastern Black King(L.g.nigra) x Eastern "Chain" King(L.g.getula) would be a prime example of an intergrade specimen since their ranges overlap in many areas, and they breed freely with one another throughout their overlapping ranges.

A hybrid is two basically unrelated genera or species that are crossed together.

Now two subspecies that would normally be far apart from one another and never meet in the wild could also be considered a hybrid of sorts to most people as well, an example of this would be a Cal. king x Eastern king. These two would never meet ranges in the wild at all, and are very different from one another. Or an Eastern milksnake x Honduran milk would never happen naturally either.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

and so a MBK and a Calking or "Yuma king" would be a great example too, 'cause they have an intergrade zone, as well as with splendida, or are they all the same snake, lol! NOT!

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Todd Hughes

Toddster,...

I knew there would be a "wise-acre" to throw a wrench into my post..LOL!

~Doug

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

well here are some photos so you guys can get a better idea of whether his head is actually abnormally small or whether he's just fat. i feed him one thawed small mouse every 6-8 days, usually i just watch him and when he starts to crawl around like hes hunting i give him the mouse.

The snake's head size is totally normal for the getula(common king) complex in relation to it's body.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

Well I'm glad to hear it
thanks for taking the time to help put my mind at ease

Well he looks like he has a couple meal in his midesection in the pic but the lower half, where fat is collected, is very thin. The neck size (or small head as you put it) may have something to do with it being a cross. The neck size has nothing to to do with it being fat.

IMO after feeding snakes all they can eat and then properly cylcling them (not forced cooling) and then allowing males to breed and females to get gravid.. Tt is impossible to get a snake "fat" unless it has a problem with breeding or it has a disposition to collect fat cells-which is rare.

It is even more impossible to get a kingsnake (notice i said kingsnake and not boas or pythons) FAT, while it is growing to a mature length. Once it reaches maturity if the KEEPER allows the snake to go through its normal cycles you should feed the snake as much as it will eat.

...If the snake is a "pet" then different rules apply and an adult kingsnake can get obese.

If you got a fat snake then BREED IT! That will sure as heck keep it thin.

I have a large colony of Florida kingsnakes that i have been maitaining for several years and i feed all my snakes as much as they will eat. None of them are fat except one which has a defective genetic disorder.
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www.Bluerosy.com

"They that can give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." -Benjamin Franklin

Yeah as a matter of fact he does have a few meals in him (or her), I was out of town for a month and he stayed with my girlfriend who, being a bit prissy, didn't feed him. So this week I tried to catch him up, i fed him two small mice on the 15th and a medium mouse on the 19th (his 1st one!). I was told by another kingsnake owner that it's ok to feed them in between defecations.

So you mentioned he looked thin in his lower section, do you think I should be feeding him more?

I was told by another kingsnake owner that it's ok to feed them in between defecations.

Yes it is unfortunate but that is what most kingsnake owners will tell you. But as a breeder of kingsnakes for over 40 years and now make my living off of kingsnakes. i can assure you that is not what is best for the snake. Take your kingsnake off a schedule and just listen to what the snake is telling you.

Let the snake tell you what it wants. Snakes are not like dogs or humans who will eat until they get obese or get sick. Most times of a kningsnakes life they are seeking for the perfect temperature and moisture. Since they are fossorial most of their lives all they do is eat, digest and conserve energy. They don't get the excercise that we think they need.

if you have a heat pad under the encloser on one end you should see that your king sits on the hot area during digestion and themn moves over to the cool side to conserve calories.

My suggestion is feed your snake larger meals at one sitting and try again in 2-3 days. Also, that is a minimum this time of year they need more fat to get through the winter brumation period and then breed in the spring.

if you plan on breeding your kingsnake i would definetly feed it right now as much as it will eat.
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www.Bluerosy.com

"They that can give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." -Benjamin Franklin

I misread your comment

"I was told by another kingsnake owner that it's ok to feed them in between defecations."

Yes it is okay to feed them "inbetween" defecations. I am so used to people saying the opposite and say wait until they deficate to feed.

Anyway, i hope you still understood what i was getting at. Sorry I misread your post.
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www.Bluerosy.com

"They that can give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." -Benjamin Franklin

Yeah I get ya. That's pretty much what I do. He had a flower pot at both ends of his tank and after eating he usually stays on the warm side for two days then moves to the other side for a day or so and after that he usually starts getting active. Which I interpreted as hunting behavior and so I feed him

I'd crack a large flower pot in half, lay it on its' side and the other end on the other end of the tank, voila, no hole to get stuck in, two hides for one low price!
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Todd Hughes

Yeah I think that's what I'm gonna do. When I first got the snake I had trouble getting him to eat even scented pinky mice and a friend of mine (th one who bred my snakes parents) told me to try putting the food into a small box with a hole in it and it worked like a charm. So Originally i was using the pots because they had a hole in the top, but since the holes are now a liability I'm gonna avoid them.

not abnormal, he's looking pretty good, actually! IMO.
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Todd Hughes

Thanks man, I've had him since he was 4 days old and he's 28 inches long now. I'm pretty proud of the little guy.

so I'd hazard to say that small hole is now too small for the 28" snake, lol! and yeah, the head is the right size for the snake, they have no well defined neck like rat snakes do, like Doug said.

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Todd Hughes