Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all!! I'm pretty new to all this. My husband and I have a Cal King snake (Chiquita). We've had her since she was a baby. We've been pretty consistent about changing her bedding and making sure things are clean and her heating is correct. Just last week, she bit herself. Never saw this before and neither has my husband, who has had more than one king snake before. We managed to pry her off of herself and immediately fed her. She went into hiding and then just today, she is biting herself again. My husband is at work, and I've managed to pry her off of herself myself. I'm defrosting some frozen mice, and will feed her as soon as it's ready. What I'd really like to know is why is she biting herself? Is there something that we can do to prevent this? Is she harming herself in the process? Please...any assistance would be really helpful!! Thanks.

G.

Inbreeding. The Cal Kings are the most inbred, especially those bred for specialty color, like the Labrynths. My male Labrynth was so sloppy stalking and striking that he usually missed; I replaced him with a MUCH better specimen. (Not all Cal Kings have this problem; my last one did not.)

Some Cal Kings have been known to attack rocks and water dishes! One reader once said that if there were any school buses for "special" Kingsnakes, the Cal Kings would all be at the back of the bus with hats on!

It is certainly possible that you have a very inbred animal whose natual instincts have been turned upside down by stupid people who do not understand the long-term consequences of disturbing the coding of the deoxyrybo nucleic acid (DNA). They will learn - in time.

Why would you state that Cal Kings are one of the most "inbred" out there? Not trying to be combative, but I see no reason for this statement. Sure, they are linebred to perpetuate uncommon characteristics, but with a new influx of genetics from legal collecting in a number of states, there is no reason to say they are one of the most inbred kinds of snakes. In fact, I doubt that can be said about any animal that can be collected still from the wild.

Australian pythons, whose gene pool is limited and fixed (no new australian pythons can enter the gene pool due to Australia's no-export law) would be the ones I would worry about that long before suspecting that in cal kings.

As for why the snake is biting itself, I would get it to a vet. I know that many snakes start to bite themselves as a sign of serious, even deadly, problems. When overheated to death, snakes are often found with their own coils in their mouths, and I've heard of many species of snakes, including venemous ones, who will repeatedly bite themselves just before dying of some internal ailment. In a snake that has never acted in this way and suddenly develops the behaviour, I would get it to a herp vet ASAP
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~Sasheena

I'd check for an infestation of some sort of bug. Maybe your snake is just trying to scratch something irritating it.
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~Banana~

I have seen this behavior in other snakes as well, most notably in my Mexican Black Kingsnake, another subspecies of the snake you are keeping. I believe it has to do with the captive environment and the stimuli that sets of the feeding reaction. I believe some snakes get accustomed to sight instead of scent feeding and identify your movement in or around the cage with feeding time and the thus the closest solid object as a food item (Kingsnakes also eat snakes.) Garters are also notorious for this. My Mexican Black casually "scented" out my thumb one-day and dug in. I had to hold him under running water for several minutes to get him to release.