Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have built my kids a 42x18x12 terrarium to keep amphibians and reptiles we catch around our farm in north Mississippi. We are loaded with grasshoppers and crickets to use as a food base- does anyone have a plan for an insect trap of some kind and what bait?
Will a very small speckled kingsnake(15" and a little thicker than a pencil) eat toads,frogs, bluetail skinks or large earthworms?

I am no where near any pet place to get info or purchase insects, etc. Thanks for any suggestions.

I collect crickets around my house. Put a little oatmeal or corn meal etc. on the ground and put a paper plate over it at sun down. In the A. M. pick up the plate and grab the crickets and throw them in a brown paper bag. The bag is too high for them to jump out of. Sometimes I also catch them near the alfalfa. I'm not sure if you spray or with what, but that is a concern. Non lethal levels of pesticides in feeders can buildup in predators.

Not sure what kingsnakes eat. I know they eat rodents, but you might check on the kingsnake forum for the others. I'm assuming you don't want the kingsnake to eat everybody else?

Sounds like fun.

DeMak

Your king will gobble the blue-tails, and possibly the frogs, with glee. Avoid the toads, they secrete toxins. It will probably ignore the earthworms.

However, you're going to have parasite buildup issues if you're keeping a snake and feeding it wild-caught reptiles. You can overcome this a bit by freezing the feeders for some time before thawing and feeding them. But the snake will still need to be checked and deparasitized pretty soon if it's wild caught, or it will eventually succomb to an increasing parasite infestation due to re-exposure to parasite eggs from its own droppings.

nm