Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a group of splendida that I have been keeping together, and I saw something today I thought I would share. The group is three females and one male. One of the females is a WC from El paso that I collected about 6 months ago, the others are some 08's from Kerby.

I have been busy lately and not feeding as much so this morning when I went to feed them I was paying special attention. I through in a handful of weaned mice and as usual everyone came out of their holes with a fury! Within a few minutes the WC female was latched on to one of the other females mice and they were all coiled around eachother eating two different ends of the mouse. So naturally I interfered and separated them, then the same thing happened with the other female, and I repeated the action by separating them. I then went upstairs to get a cup of coffee.

When I came back down to look in the cage the WC female and now the male were latched on to the same mouse, and I just decided to watch, and behold to what I saw:

THE TWO SNAKES RIPPED THE MOUSE IN TWO AND EACH ATE HALF. I couldn't believe it! I see my monitors do this all the time, but kingsnakes???? How bizarre!

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"Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew!" Charlie Papazian

That's amazing.

One thing i would try and do is to hand feed each his own mouse and move to opposite corners of the unit. Then they are all eating at the same time. Usually after their first mouse they are not as aggressive with stealing each others prey.

When they get this aggressive it usually means they are not being fed enough. Have you considered that?
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www.Bluerosy.com

Funny thing is, I think this is what they do. I have evidence to support that when housed together more than one snake are actively hunting the same mouse when their are plenty of other prey items available. I wonder if that increased their chance of successfully capturing prey? Also most of the time one snake will go around and kill most of the mice and the others benefit and eat the killed mice. You need large cages to test this, but it is repeatable.

The snakes are not underfed. I usually feed them every couple of days, (this time I waited a week, last week I fed them day old quail until they wouldn't eat) and all three females are ovulating.

They have a range of temps available from 70F to 140F, and deep substrate to burrow in.
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"Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew!" Charlie Papazian

Funny thing is, I think this is what they do. I have evidence to support that when housed together more than one snake are actively hunting the same mouse when their are plenty of other prey items available. I wonder if that increased their chance of successfully capturing prey? Also most of the time one snake will go around and kill most of the mice and the others benefit and eat the killed mice. You need large cages to test this, but it is repeatable.

As you probably know i have a large collection of florida kings and they are all housed together in pairs, trios and somtimes 4 or 5 to a larger unit.

I just throw the mice or chick in with them and don't have the time to observe every cage and what they do. What does happen is they don't eat each other. I do see them politly taking turns and sharing. maybe this is because they are used to living in colonies or they are just well fed? I don't know. But it works fine for many years and i have yet to have a loss.
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www.Bluerosy.com

Exactly! I think my point was even though I keep them like this, my instinct was to interfere with them, which I did initially. However when I just decided to watch and see what they do I saw the "sharing" of food. I have seen this with lizards many times, but never with snakes. I wish I could have gotten a pic! Once I saw that, I was not worried anymore, threw in another handful of mice and went to work.
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"Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew!" Charlie Papazian

I was not worried anymore, threw in another handful of mice and went to work.

that's what i do. I just throw in 5 chicks and leave the house. Never look back.
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www.Bluerosy.com

All it takes is one time, when you loose a favorite snake and most people stop this kind of behavior. If I had hundereds of snakes and didn't mind loosing one or two then that's a different story. I have had king snakes eat each other so maybe you guys are lucky! I'm sure there are a lot of others here who can share their cage mate horror stories too. I know this will be a long thread, lol.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

Well lets see. I have more then 2000 florida kings at hatching time counting adults. i have been working with a large colony of florida kings for the past 15 years and never lost one to cannabalism. I have not lost one through a feeding mishap even though the adults are kept together with teh eception of egg laying time.

The only conclusion is people don't allow them to bond. Instead they constanly remove their snakes because they are afraid of every move the snake makes... I read this over and over here on the forums just when snakes are trying to BREED. "Oh my male is biting my female" So i removed him from his cage"...and this is when snakes are trying to breed. bad advice from folks telling them to remove the male just adds to teh confusion. THAT'S PART OF COURTSHIP! It also happens more when males aren't bonded to the females and so they get scarred up.

Her is a recap of previous posts:
1) don't put neonates together
2) start the bonding process once the snake reach 18" (Florida kings)or when they start feeding on small mice.
3) FEED YOUR SNAKE ENOUGH! This is something else people think they are doing right for the snakes by putting them on a feeding schedule or a diet- feed them when they are hungry and often.
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www.Bluerosy.com

if it works for you more power to you but I hate to think what would have happened if the mouse wouldn't have ripped in two with those Splendida? I will keep some kings together like graybands and Thayeri also some milks but not common kings! The two I did have eat each other were not at mating season they had been together for a while I used to keep all my snakes in pairs or groups when i first started to save space.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

What your practicing is protective behavior. Your trying to protect your animals from everything. So you do not let them be ANYTHING. Which is common here.

The point is, danger is their world. The world they live in. Its your world too. They can die or get in an accident at any moment doing about anything.

Every friggin snake on this board is going to die and die of something. I would rather lose a snake thats having some manner of "life" Then lose a snake thats doing absolutely nothing but sitting in a sweater box on newspaper, with a water bowl.

One point I hope comes across here is, THESE animals do things, these things ARE there life. Your task is to learn to keep them in a way that includes as much of their life as possible. NOT AS LITTLE as possible. To live without a life, IS NO LIFE.

Please consider, let these animals have more then a heartbeat. Give them an oppertunity to live.

Yes, there is a small danger if supported correctly. But its not more then having the snake get out and die(a common death for captives) or get its head caught in the door(another common death) Or die of reproductive complications(friggin dang common) Do you get the picture.

There is a real point here. Unless you raise them from babies together, do not do that with older solitary confinement individuals. They may be damaged beyond repair.

As Bluerosy pointed out many times, there are indeed methods to introduce older animals. Like place them together in the fall after the temps have dropped below feeding temps. That way, they learn eachother before the snake spring and summer.

But the elimination of life to keep them alive is WRONG. Learning to give them a life, while keeping them alive is RIGHT. Cheers

I can't tell if you are being funny or serious? Live, is what I want them to do, not die at the dinner table, lol. I know let's just let them all go! Then they will truely be free!
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

You really need to consider caging these snakes separately or at least feeding them separately.
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M u s t G a i n C o n t r o l
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

sounds incredibly intelligent.....

wow......

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......JY