Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey input I noticed after viewing a couple pictures of your albino cali king and seeing that you wrote it was almost 5 feet long (58" and looked very healthy, I would just like to know what process you went through in taking care of it and feeding? I noticed how you feed it a lot of mice or 1-2 rats every 2 weeks. How often did u feed it when it was a baby and how much? Also when did u know to switch over to rats? If you could help me out that'd be great, thanks.

When he was just a young pup he ate pinkie mice 24/7. I swear it was like a kid eating candy. I would buy a like 8 or 10 pinkies and he would eat 2 every other day (1 in the morning and 1 at night). He shed (and sh*t) so ofton and always hung out in the water. I would always be at the reptile store buying mice and they would just say I think he can handle a bigger one, so we would try and stunned mouse and yup he'd eat it. Once I felt comfortable we'd do a live one. I just kept upgrading like that until the point where he was eating fuzzy rats then small rats. He still eats mice though. He'll get on these kicks were he'll just eat mice and some were he just eats rats. All I do is take him down to the shop and put something in his Temple of Doom (usually a rat)(cardboard box formerly used to hold mice) and see if he eats it, if he doesnt i'll try a mouse. When he was young I kept him in an 100 something gallon tank at my friends house so that helped influence growth. Since the age of 2 1/2 I brought him home and he's bin in a 60 gallon tank. He is no longer stretching (58'') but getting fatter and he's doing great. I still let him have his winters to hybernate and he looses weight but i help him get it right back. I also kept the heat high (85-95) all year except during hybernation. Hope that helps. GOOD LUCK
ps. i dont remeber if you said you own a king or not but if you have/get 1 please post I would love to see it. TY