Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone here ever heard of a cal king eating crickets? I work at PetsMart and the Specialties manager told these people that their cal king (a baby, maybe 4-5 months) would eat crickets... I was checking them out at my register when I found this all out... I told her that I really didn't think a king will eat them. She started arguing with me that it wasn't big enough to eat a pinkie! I have a baby mexican black, approximatly the same age, and I am guessing about the same size and she ate one just fine!!! All I am looking for from anyone is if they have had a king eat crickets, or if I was right in my knowledge in telling her it wouldn't eat them... what do all of you feed to your baby kings? Pinks I assume.... Any input it appreciated. Thanks!
-----
~Laura

Rejoice, the age of the fall has begun
We'll dance as the palaces burn.
--Lamb of God, As the Palaces Burn

when I did purchase kings from retail pet stores in my area, there were two separate stores ("petland discount" I went to where an employee told me he fed the kings crickets. the first one told me the king took them willingly the second was forced fed crickets. I've never read any king snake book where crickets were mentioned as a primary food source. I think a king may strike at a cricket b-cuz of the excessive movement, but I don't think they should ever be offered as a food source.

you may want to bring your supervisor a king snake book.

it'd be a real shame to have a king snake die as a result of ignorance.

~ZF

Well after feeding only around a few thousand baby cal kings their first meals pinky mice I must be wrong LOL

I would say that 99.99% of cal kings first meal consists of pinky mice or baby lizards in the wild. It is possible for a cal king to eat a cricket, but for the employee at the pet store to base that logic on the fact that cal kings are too small to eat pinky mice is flat out incorrect.

Kerby...

My snakes do fine eating pinks, i'm not gonna bother with switching them over to crix.

I had heard this quite a few times before one of these idiots could point to where he gotthis info. It comes from many people assuming and some misreading books. The few that actually read anything don't read very much. I had the idiot who did direct me to a book on the subject point out that gut contents of wild kings studied contained insects. He didn't read the next line that stated that the insects probably indicated gut content of other food items (ie frogs and lizards)when refering to kingsnakes. Some snakes apparently do eat insects in the wild but that is a very small percentage of their diet. Also crickets are known to pass on pinworms to the animals that eat them. Most insectivores can stand the pin worms but not snakes as far as I know.
Thanks Jason