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I just have a general question about feeding a cali king other snakes. Now I highly doubt that I will feed my king another snake at all but I am just curious about the risks involved. I wouldn't feed it a wild caught garter snake/decay/racer for example for fear or external/internal parasites.

But what about some ribbon snakes sold in pet shops? Now I know that most of them are wild caught but definately don't have external parasites. Say that snake has internal parasites and my king ate it would my king have internal parasites afterward?

I use to feed my red sided garter snake and bullsnake(who happened to be the meanest snake I have ever seen!)that I had about 15 years ago WC American Toads/small bull frogs all the time and I had him for about 6 years before he escaped and never once had a problem. I know NOW that Toads/frogs have tons of parasites but the garter ate them all the time along with redback salamanders and gold fish and the occasional pinkie.

Right now my king eats about 3 fuzzies per sitting every 7 days(and would eat more if I let him) and most likely VERY soon will be able to handle hoppers as he is getting quite large very fast.I am just curious in case I want to give him a 'treat'.

Ok, if you decide you want to feed your kingsnake a snake(which is cool to watch), I recommend you get the snake that will be the food, put it in a container it cannot get out of, and put it on the freezer for a week. It will kill off most of/if not all the offending parasites.
Michael
Michael's Place

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http://www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

Helmz614@aol.com

Thanks Mike. I am curious about seeing a king snake eat another snake. I have read about how they eat other snakes but have never seen it happen and I watch discovery channel,animal planet and all those shows ALL THE TIME! My king is about a year old,maybe 20 inches long and pretty thick. I am still undecided about feeding him another snake since he will get all the stuff he needs from mice but it still has me curious.

I did see one show however that was on rattle snakes and they showed how the rattle snake defends itself from a king snake. Pretty cool actually. The rattle snake knows it's bite won't prevent a king from trying to eat it so it was kind of taking wacks at the snake with a whip like action rater then biting it. The rattler actually got away from the king on the show.

and very informative. The rattler's defensive posture is noteworthy.

As far as feeding snakes to your calking, let nature be your guide. I once heard it said that an adult male calking's diet consists of up to 40% rattlesnakes alone, not counting the ringnecks, gophers, and garters he snarfs up. Even if that was an exaggeration, my point is that they seem to have done pretty well for the last few million years or so. I doubt that things have changed since we acquired ours. The question is one of parasites, as an astute poster has already made you aware.

I feed live prey only, but that's merely preference. This includes a garter if I can't locate a skink or fence lizard on "food collection day," but it's rare when I'll do that because it means the zonata and boa have to go hungry.

Regards.