Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a clutch of California kingsnakes that will not eat! I have never had this problem before. It has been nearly three months since they hatched. Here is what I have tried:
1. F/T Pink from tongue.
2. F/T Pink left in a deli cup with snake over night.
3. Live Pink left in a deli cup with snake over night.
4. Scented pink with lizard, left in deli cup over night.
5. Scented pink with frog, left in deli cup over night.
6. Brained pink.
7. Pink body part (Head or Tail)
8. Force feed. (They all just regurgitated.)
I am lost as to what else I can do for them. All attempts at feeding were done at least 4 days apart from the previous attempt. Is this clutch just a product of natural selection and doomed to die? Like I said, this is the first time this has ever been a problem for me. The room they are kept in maintains an ambient temp of 80-82 degrees during the day. It drops to about 78 at night. They have all shed at least two times and some three times. Their sheds have all been full. Humidity seems to be ok. What else is left for me to try with them?

I force feed mouse tails cut off of frozen mice. Thaw them in warm water and gently start them in the snakes mouth big end first so as to not go against the grain of the hair. Once the tail gets past the back of the throat their swallow reflex should kick in. Do this till they come around to pinks.

Since it is now moving into fall, and the time in the wild when these animals brumate, just put them into brumation and most likely in the spring they will eat. I have done this with a few stubborn babies. Brumation doesn't hurt them if their gut is empty. The cooler temps slow down their metabolism, and conserves their resources. During brumation be sure to provide fresh water at all times.
-----
Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

The problem is, its not even close to the time when neonates stop feeding in nature. Cheers

Any current photos of the babies to get an idea of their weight?
-----

They range from 16-18 grams.

They are not doomed to die. I used to produce B&W Cals, and one year a clutch did exactly that - would not feed.

After trying a number of things, including patience, I cooled them as best as possible. Around December, I put a heat pad against the back of their boxes, and I tried feeding. Some ate. The rest followed by Jan. I kept one of the female hatchlings, and she ended up huge after about 5 yrs, so the delayed start did nothing to hurt her growth at all.

Yep. I've has a lot of success doing the same darn thing!

Tim

So, basically I should put them in an early brumation state and then try feeding after warming them back up? I will try this. I don't usually brumate in the traditional manner, but I will give this a try. (I live in South Florida and brumate with the natural temps here during the winter. A warm day and cool night type of brumation. It seems to work for breeding purposes.)

It seems to work. Like you, for some reason that one year, I had babies that would not feed. I tried extra humidity, which is important because dehydrated king/milk/corn hatchlings are challenged. That did not work either. Cooling did for these Cal kings.

I believe cool nights with no heat will do the same thing, even if days are warm. In fact, warm days and cool nights are what happens in Spring, so you may find your hatchlings feeding in that regimen sooner than later.

First off, there are three keys to kings, humidity, temps, and security. Make sure these are taken care of and there is usually no problem.

I will say, I keep bringing this up on another forum. Before a keeper resorts to trickery, address the above. But for some reason, folks keep thinking their cage conditions are perfect and they must resort to all manner of tricks.

At some point tricks may be required, but 99% of the time, simple cage adjustments will do the trick.

I have been breeding Cal kings for since 1964 and never had to resort to tricks. Of course there were many many times my cages fell behind and had to bring them up to par. Best wishes

You are right, 99% of the time I do not have to do anything special. That has been true this year and before. I have several clutches this year of Kings, Milks, and Gophers. Everything has eaten except the animals from this one clutch. I'm certain my conditions are correct in this situation. It is odd to me that it is one entire clutch acting in the same manner. They are housed individually as with all my animals. I have never had this problem before, so I resorted to "trickery" several normal attempts. That didn't work, so I came here to find answers.

I understand when what you do works for a while, or on most, then this happens. But this is the actual test, not the easy ones.

Often times, you can simply move the same cage that works to a different room or on a different shelf and have it not work.

I want you to think about this, its the picky ones that test the merits of husbandry, what works for them, works for all. Cheers