Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Last Saturday i purchased a female Cali king at the Hamburg reptile show, to breed with my 2 year old male next year. At the time, i was unable to handle the girl, since i held other snakes earlier in the day, i didn't want to be bit. When i brought her home, i let her rest for a couple days, and decided to take her out. She IMMEDIATELY went to attack me, latched onto my hand and constricted. i actually had to leave the glove with her, since she wouldn't let go of it. I fed her a couple weanling rats to satisfy her hunger, but she still was biting at the terrarium at me. Im at a loss as to what to do. I honestly doubt by her behavior Ill be able to handle her ever, and id be VERY concerned about putting her in with my male for breeding if she acts this way. Does anyone have suggestions on how to calm her down a bit, if possible?
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Going by the picture she is definately in feeding mode. She also looks a little thin. Maybe just the picture. She also looks big enough to breed. Do you know if she has laid a clutch this year? If so, females will have appetites like that to regain body weight. Keep wearing the gloves and feed her as much as she will eat. Steve

yea, my male cali king is MUCH heavier bodied than she is, so i figure she might be a lil lean (especially since she has a much bigger head than he does!) I have the size rats just smaller than the small adults from rodent pro, and she gobbled those two down without hesitation (and of course, while constricting my removed glove the entire time)

Another thing,DO NOT HAND FEED HER! By that I mean hold her while feeding. She may have been fed like that when she was a juvenile (I did that with my MBK) when he was a baby and he grew up thinking my hand was FOOD! After brumation, he stopped eating me. Now he eats (just throw mice in) and he's a perfect gentleman, never bites or attemps to but his appetite is great! Hope you have the same luck with her. Steve

yea, that's not an issue, I feed all my snakes in a designated "feeding container" to ensure they don't get into thinking their terrarium opening does not mean time to eat.

It appears to be a feeding response. Since you got an older snake from a breeder, she probably was only handled during maintenance, etc., and not as a pet. Hard to do that when you have a large breeding collection. It will probably just take time and patience. I would get a snake hook and touch her around her head and body before picking her up to let her know its not food. Cals appear to easily condition to aggressive food responses if not held regularly. My yearling male is a terror when you open his cage and reach inside. He generally calms down once I touch him with the hook and he realizes its not food. Hopefully she will mellow a bit after she fattens up as well.

Feed her, often. That pretty much will do more for the situation than anything else. Kingsnakes aren't ball pythons. Kingsnakes eat more often and poop more often.

"Soak" her in a separate container with just about 1/8 inch of water, feed her in there if you want. She'll get moisture and food right there.

BTW, I have huge doubts about separate container feed response conditioning. I understand feeding separately to avoid substrate consumption, to hydrate the snake as mentioned, or to give you a chance to clean the cage. But conditioning a Cal king? And a hungry Cal king at that? Forget it, it is hogwash.

Cal kings are knuckleheads. When hungry, they are alert to anything moving around them, doesn't matter what container they are in. And logically, if the separate container thing works, shouldn't she bite you when pulled out of the container? I mean, it is where she is fed. All regurgitated nonsense I tell you. You see her trying to eat your glove. And this is the snake you are trying to teach? She doesn't want to be conditioned, she wants to eat.
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Mark

You can condition ANY animal, snakes included. Ever hear of Pavlov's dog. If a snake were in a cage, never handle its entire life and its only interaction with humans was a cage being opened and food coming in then the snake would associate humans with food. I have several kings and the only one that even attemps (used to) bite was my MBK that I hand fed as a baby. Yeah it was cute when he'd bite me when he was 11" long but at 52" NOT SO FUN!

what would a good handling schedule be? i fed her the two rats 2-3 days ago. I figure sometimes JUST holding her to accustom her to humans not always being a bringer of food would help, but i dont want to stress her out.

Feed her a small rat or two every three days until she put the weight back on. Give her a day to digest and hold her several times a day for about 15 minutes or so (gloves on). When she gets her weight back, take her out and let her crawl around your hands (again, gloves on) and if her feeding response is gone, take one glove off and see how she reacts to the smell of your hand. It's going to take time but if you work at it you'll have success. Good luck. Steve

She is starving according to the pics you posted. It will take a while to get the proper weight on her.. Once she has that she will stop the feeding response.

Also this time of year females are in breeding mode and she is trying to put as much fat on as possible to develope and carry through with the egg production processes.

Feed her AS MUCH AS SHE WILL EAT AND AS OFTEN AS SHE WILL EAT.

Handling her before she puts on proper weight is probably futile. What she is doing is a good and healthy response for a cal king. So you should be happy she is not thin and WEAK! She has a goood appetaite given her condition. And that is a good thing.

Feed her and she will stop with the feeding response and you will have a handaleable kingsnake. You might even get a clutch of eggs out of her....but I would wait until she puts on some weight (probably 2 weeks if fed right) before introducing her to the male. That way she will not try and eat everything that moves and she will have the reserves to handle the egg laying process.
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www.Bluerosy.com

Ive been feeding her two small adult rats every four days, and holding her about 10 mins every other day. She's DEFINATLY calming down, although still quite skittish. My male is only two, and he still has more girth to him than she is. Thankfully, she's no longer displaying aggression when i walk past her enclosure. Im going to remain light on the handling until she's got more weight to her. (she hasn't hesitated to eat for a SECOND, she's a f/t rat seeking missile, I figured she seemed lightweight, but seeing her behavior, I worry I may have purchased a neglected animal, and financially rewarded said neglect, but she's in good hands now

While I agree that a snake, likely any snake, does learn where and when it can find food (that is after all what they do in the wild), I doubt that the separate container practice conditions them in any way.

> If so, the snake wouldn't try and escape when you put them in the separate conatiner, and yet they often do until they smell the rodent.

> If so, the snake might bite you as soon as it enters the container, since it supposedly knows it is going to feed.

> If so, after the snake eats in the separate container, wouldn't it look at you when you open the lid expecting more? How is this different from opening a cage? The snake knows the difference?

I know that kings learn their environment in the wild, learn where food might best be found, learn where the best basking areas are, etc. Well, they do or they die. But one small container to another, with you forcing them in one or the other, what do they learn? Its not like they get a reward for choosing the right container. You stick them in it. The snake did not make a decision here.
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Mark

"While I agree that a snake, likely any snake, does learn where and when it can find food (that is after all what they do in the wild), I doubt that the separate container practice conditions them in any way."

I don't think that it's so much that you are conditioning the snake by putting it in a separate container as much as you are "NOT" conditioning it to think food when the cage is open. It's more of a non conditioning, or lack of bad conditioning. Does this make sense? I also have a technique that I have used for years, and I believe it works but it's just a gut feeling that seems to be backed up by results. I use this with wild caught yellow rats which are naturally nervous. I hold the snakes head in my fingers without putting a lot of pressure. You just want to keep the snakes head between your fingers and rub with your thumb. The snake will try to pull away because they feel vulnerable having their head held. But if you persist to keep holding and rubing their head they calm down drastically. Now having said that, this is more for nervous snakes than hungry snakes. There are exceptions to every rule and some snakes are just voracious eaters and have a very strong feeding response. It is easier to control them if you have them from very young, cause once they get old you are trying to undo behavior which is always harder. Sorry if I rambled on...But I do think feeding in sparate containers (I use paper bags), reduces the chance of being mistaken for food, if it's been done since a baby.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

Mark, I agree with you about the feeding containers ABSOLUTELY! I tried that method with my MBK when he was eating me with no luck. My theory on that is that you put them in a seperate container to feed, then feed them, they are in eating mode when you try to put them back into their enclosure so your bound to get bit. In my opinion, that is conditioning.

I agree with Mark AND Kingboa. Sorry Jorge!! But, I do believe in your theory of non-conditioning and the only way you can do that IMO is to handle your snake often, and not just during feeding. All to often with larger collections, "Play time" handling of your animals is not always feasible like back in the day when you had one snake and played with it while watching Saturday morning cartoons, and pretty much every day possible besides right after feeding. Also, my snakes were WC and were fed live mice or lizards. No f/t back then. These wild animals were also not used to food dropping in from above like many of the cb animals are, and it actually took them awhile to realize prey was available. They were actually more conditioned of a natural environment. I dont remember having any "food aggressive" bites and once the snakes were calm and tamed, they were pretty much reliable from a non-biting standpoint. Many have cb animals now that are tame, but will still give more food aggressive bites or chews out of the blue and are IMO more unreliable from an overall biting standpoint than tamed WC individuals. Just my unscientific observations mind you, but I still think are valid. Because of our current feeding practices, there are only two or three snakes in my collection I am confident of just reaching into the cage and picking up without first notifying them its not food by touching with a hook. The older ones in my care longer usually realize its not food time once touched with the hook first and then can be safely picked up. So, I have to un-condition them to expecting food everytime the cage is opened with hook touching first.

>>You can condition ANY animal, snakes included. Ever hear of Pavlov's dog. If a snake were in a cage, never handle its entire life and its only interaction with humans was a cage being opened and food coming in then the snake would associate humans with food. I have several kings and the only one that even attemps (used to) bite was my MBK that I hand fed as a baby. Yeah it was cute when he'd bite me when he was 11" long but at 52" NOT SO FUN!

The real way around that is handling them outside of feeding. There's no way in hell I'm moving my retics for feeding (handling a retic that's been smelling food and is hungry=pain and blood). I open most cages daily, if for no other reason than to spot check for feces, etc. I can't say that I have any animals that always treat the cage door opening as a meal thing. Now yeah, if I've been thawing rodents out and the smell is all over, everyone's ready to chow down. rest of the time? Not so much unless the snake's already hungry (gauged by activity).
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

Boids are a COMPLETELY different animal IMO. I've rescued many boids or helped people out with sick ones. The thin, hungry ones would bite as soon as I reached my hand in but as soon as I got them out handling them they were baby tame. Retics are fun aren't they? Dare you to open the cage and move quickly (and close) to their head! See what happens LOL. My MBK I got as a newborn, fed him about 4 times in my hand and that was it. Ever since then he tried to eat me. I fed him 6 large mice a week and he would still eat me. After brumation, he stopped. Don't know why.I've asked on this forum with no answers. Did you get my message I sent you a while ago?

I'm going to go with no, since I've only gotten one or two messages from K-snake and neither were from you. *shrugs* Cyberspace, the great devourer eh?
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

Well, if he only has one or two snakes then they are his pets. We have too many to think of them as pets. Of all the snakes I have I only have one that I know will come after me when I open it's cage. A hypo Everglades I rescued from a pet shop years ago. This thing is like a heat seeking missle, lol.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

This thread is getting funnier and funnier.....
Just let the snake be a snake and not a pet that will come to you when you call it.......LOL

All the schedules and conditioning information the original poster is getting is hog wash........

Feed the thing when it is hungry and it will be happy.....
Not 2 mice twice a week......on Mondays and Thursdays....lol
Don't handle it for 15 minutes every other day.......except on days that it is fed.....LOL
Not in another container......

Feed it when it tells you that it is hungry.......When the lights go out and it emerges from its hide searching the enclosure it is hungry.....When you feed it lay 4 or 5 mice in there with it.....She'll eat until she doesn't want anymore......When she does it again repeat.......
If it doesn't "calm down" be glad you have a snake with a great feeding response......
What's so wrong with that??????
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

I didn't say "feed 2 times a week" and I didn't say hold it for 15 min. every other day, I said a couple of times a day for 15 min. I'm just trying to help a person out who would rather have a PET snake they can manage and not lose interest. Why do you think garden tree boas are not a big seller? Your a breeder, so you obviously wouldn't sell something no one going is buy. I went through this with one of my kings and I was trying to give advice. Some people just want a pet. If they picked the wrong snake they will learn but I don't think this is the case.

I know you didn't say my exact words but you did say.....

"Feed her a small rat or two every three days until she put the weight back on. Give her a day to digest and hold her several times a day for about 15 minutes"

This is what a TFH book will tell you to do.....lol

If the Original Poster is not willing to learn from the animal then SURE give the advice here.....Feed it once or twice a week. Hold it for 15 minutes several times a day except on feeding day......Keep it in a tub with a hide on one end and a water bowl on the other.....THAT IS JUST ENOUGH TO KEEP IT ALIVE!

....There is a difference between living and thriving in captivity.......

Even us that go to the extremes with options and choices still can not and do not emulate wild habitat perfectly, but I honestly agree that our snakes are much healthier than those following a TFH guideline to snake keeping 101....
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

First off, read all of those books as a kid. Secondly, I was trying to be politically correct by saying "only feed it this much (which is more than TFH would recommend). I got critisized on here about how much I fed my kings (female pregnant,too much).I have to say that if a snake is healthy,eating and breeding then your not doing all that harm to the snake. I have hides, climbing and waterholes for mine and their doing GREAT!

>>First off, read all of those books as a kid. Secondly, I was trying to be politically correct by saying "only feed it this much (which is more than TFH would recommend). I got critisized on here about how much I fed my kings (female pregnant,too much).I have to say that if a snake is healthy,eating and breeding then your not doing all that harm to the snake. I have hides, climbing and waterholes for mine and their doing GREAT!

Good for you then.....
I would never criticize about feeding too much because if temperature and humidity options are provided a snake will eat until full and turn down food if not hungry........
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

well, a great feeding response is awesome and all, but Id like to be able to take her out and hold her, or at least be able to walk PAST her without aggressive actions, and be able to open up her tub to spot clean, add water, etc, without fear of attack by a snake that could leave a decent mark in me, hence my concern.

>>well, a great feeding response is awesome and all, but Id like to be able to take her out and hold her, or at least be able to walk PAST her without aggressive actions, and be able to open up her tub to spot clean, add water, etc, without fear of attack by a snake that could leave a decent mark in me, hence my concern.

Providing it all the options and choices and feeding when she is hungry will deter her from striking as you walk by....

Using a hook as another poster mentioned is probably the best way to let her know you are not feeding her and are just wanting to pick her up.......and maintain her enclosure....

I've never used a hook in my life....I sometimes take off my cap and cover the snake to calm them down though....LOL
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

Regarding feeding as much and as often as the snake wants, do kings tend to get too fat like cornsnakes? In my limited experience, male corns especially seem to get overweight if fed as much as they want. I am currently only feeding my male a large mouse about every 10 days. At least he doesn't try to eat my hand when I reach into his cage, but he would certainly eat more often!

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Kent

0.1 Hypomelanistic striped cornsnake
1.0 Lavender cornsnake
1.2 Gray-banded kingsnakes, blairs phase
1.1 Oregon rubber boas

Kent...... It all depends on your set up.......if given the correct thermal gradient a king snake will not get overweight......... I have noticed thar sub adult kings want to eat more and adult kings do not want as much as growing young ones......

Btw.... If I waited 10 days to feed my snakes they would be starving......
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

John, thanks, I was not sure if your were referring to adult or juvenile kings.

The mentioned male corn is two years old, and nearing 4 feet. He successfully sired a clutch of good eggs this year. He is already tending to look fat if I feed him too often. I did feed him as much as he wanted when he was younger. My female corn which laid the eggs is eating about every 4 days, and putting weight back on.

My young alternas also eat about every 4 days, and are growing rapidly.

Thanks.

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Kent

0.1 Hypomelanistic striped cornsnake
1.0 Lavender cornsnake
1.2 Gray-banded kingsnakes, blairs phase
1.1 Oregon rubber boas

That male corn is not the one I was referring to, but shows what I mean by male corns packing on the weight.
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Kent

0.1 Hypomelanistic striped cornsnake
1.0 Lavender cornsnake
1.2 Gray-banded kingsnakes, blairs phase
1.1 Oregon rubber boas

In my limited experience, male corns especially seem to get overweight if fed as much as they want.

Yes. ADULT males to tend to get fat if ovrfed. But breeding females don't.

because of the egg laying process, brumation and going off feed for a while post laying. They really need to eat eat eat!
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www.Bluerosy.com

I had VERY large Leucistic Rats for many years and fed them in seperate containers for the feeding response thing and the substrate ingestion thing etc.. It was the school of thought thing back then. I agree that it doesn't work. At least for me it hasn't. Snakes can be conditioned I believe but when you pick them up I find they are as likely to think it's feeding time when removed from the cage becausee they get excited about going to the box. I have no real answers, I'm working on it too. Part of it is reading their reactions. some do recognize handling and snap out of it. Others don't. Bad thing about Kings is it's a gamble sometimes. Sometimes I have some out for extended periods of time fine and a switch clicks and they are eating fingers and hands.No smell of other snakes,prey or anything. Out of the blue.

What I'm doing now is trying to feed them 5 or 6 mice wait a day to let their stomachs settle and then gently handle them with out the tiger response . For some it seems to be working, others still go for me or their own bodies and I feed generously and frequently. "Knuckleheads is how I feel about them too. Sometimes it may be a certain time in their lives?

One of the reasons I like Black Milks is they have a TREMENDOUS feeding response but I have NEVER EVER had one chew on me like a common King out of the blue or even reaching for them. As long as they see it's not food they turn OFF. I love it!

I've had more luck conditioning by removing everything (except water) from the cage, and putting down a piece of plastic over the bedding when I'm going to feed. takes care of keeping them from ingesting substrate -- and also only gets them feisty when they see their hide and such removed. I do this with both my kings and my rats with pretty decent luck, though, if I miss a feeding it doesn't matter if the hide is in the cage or not -- they're hungry!

i have the EXACT same problem with my male, and i agree with the other person who posted in reply. Mine is only docile during the time period around 24 hours after I've fed him (i don't like to handle directly after feeding), and i still need gloves to get him out without getting chomped...but once he's out he's okay. just keep feeding her and see what works best. it took me a while to figure my guy out. it's a shame the conditioning thing doesn't work.

But I have found over the years if I have an overly agressive feeder and I'm feeding it VERY well and it still goes into a frenzy without warning etc. I can make up my mind to keep it and accept the behaviour or if I want to be able to enjoy handling and admiring it and servicing the cage without all the excitement/drama and feel comfotable with visitors handling it I have founfd there are too many other nice snakes that fit that bill and don't waste my time and send it down the road. Theres always someone else willing or desiring the challenge or needing a breeder, a garbage can snake in a collection to eat the uneaten mice etc. Cut your losses and move forward and enjoy yourself.

Pyros are excellent in that regard as are Black Milks,Greybands,Thayeri and many others.(always exceptions but gennerally true)