Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a wild caught Desert King that quits eating, usually in mid Sept and only eats one mouse in Feb and one in March and slowly picks up in April. This year she quit eating mid Aug even though it was still 100 degrees out. Does this mean it's going to be a colder winter? Do wild caught Kings act different from captive bred? I've had her for 6 years now and she does the same thing every year (except this year) whether I try to keep her warm or not. When I kept her warm, though, she lost a lot of weight, so I won't do that again. And I don't really have a place to keep her any colder than the 65 night temps and 70 to 75 temps during the day. Was just curious about all of this.

Well, it can detect the photo period length of daylight from any nearby window, so regardless of temperature, they still know exactly what the season's are. One month difference in the six years you have had it doesn't necessarily mean anything, as that is at least "fairly" close to when it normally starts shutting down. I don't think they can predict the future winter temps though, but something else could have easily influenced the slightly earlier change in it to stop feeding.

It could be any number of things however, and only you would be able to conclude any possible changes, even very subtle ones that might have been made in it's environment.

In any case though, yes, cooler temps over the long period of time will definitely help conserve more of it's body mass, so hopefully it is pretty robust to help it through.

Good luck with it!

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

It appears Fall came early this year at my house as well with a few animals. Particularly my uromastyx. I think our scaley charges are way more susceptible to noticing temp and photoperiod changes than we give them credit for, even in captivity. They just know when its time to redirect their efforts towards brumation. Take her off the heat if you are worried about weight loss and minimize the loss as much as possible. Another trick is to offer smaller prey items. They sometime will take a hopper or fuzzy when normally feeding on adult mice. I quess they sense they can digest and assimilate the smaller prey during these transition periods and may even feed on the smaller prey items more consistently during the brumation months, even if not fully brumated.

My scarlet king has stopped eating, my black pines have stopped eating and I expect my grey bands will, too, soon. Today is the first day it has been below 90 in N. Fla! I don't normally brumate until December. Hopefully they'll take a meal or two before then.

Does anyone think if I put them on heat, they might start eating again? Most of my colubrids are off heat during the summer because my house is warm. I did turn the heat on the pines, so we'll see.
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Amy Claiborne

Don't let them take your wasted time. J.T.

"Does anyone think if I put them on heat, they might start eating again?"

That is hard to say. Sometimes they will, and other times they simply won't. If you offer much smaller meals than normal, sometimes they will accept them though.

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

My horse started to fuzz up last month too, which was earlier than usual. I talked to someone in Dell City TX who lives on a ranch in the desert and she said that she's been noticing that the critters are starting to act like it's later in the year as well.

A lot of horse people are convinced that a horse coats up according to the light, not the temps, but I disagree. One year mine were slick as a whistle till mid Dec because it was warm out (then we had a record breaking two feet of snow and they were freezing their butts off, but coated up really fast). Other years they coated up early, like this year. We did have some chilly nights but the temps soon rose again. Now she's sweating out the high temps.

Anyway, do your captive bred Kings go all the way to April to start eating again? Mine goes 7 months without eating anything except maybe two small mice and I think she only does it to get the worried look off of my face (LOL). I've learned to beef her up the few months she does eat so that she doesn't get as thin as she did the year I tried to keep her warm, but with her starting early this year, I'm even more concerned because it cut off a month of my beefing time.

Hey! I have horses, too. Mine don't seem to be fuzzing up yet here in N. Fla. My arab mare usually gets caught without enough coat when the first cold snap hits and I have to blanket her.
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Amy Claiborne

Don't let them take your wasted time. J.T.

Well, being that I live in central Florida, with a little heat added during the very coldest times of the season, my floridana and many other types of snake continue feeding throughout the winter months, and they do not get a real "formal" brumation. I just offer them slightly smaller meals during these times and they still feed real well.

My Outer Banks kings however being a far more northern race, all stop feeding around late December-January, and then start back feeding around April.

I will be breeding my splendida or the first time next year, so I don't quite know how they will behave when the sesn starts changing, but the 2009 youngter's did both feed just yesterday with their normal gusto, and one was even just starting to come out of it's "blue" shed cycle. So I will continue to feed them as long as they will be willing to do so, and especially since my splendida aren't going to be breeding this year.

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

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com