Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone,

Yesterday someone gave me a sick snake...I don't know what it is, and I don't have a digital camera.

Here is a description of it, it's the best I can do
for now. It is VERY thin...but I did get a small fuzzy shoved down the hatch lte last night.

The top of the small head has a single white spot on
the parietals, the head is black. The rostral,
internasal,supralabial, and sublabial areas are also
white, with black outlining....basically everything
below the jaw has this feature. (Looks really cool!)

The body is dark brown. There is a single cream to
white longitudinal stripe, which extends to the
beginning of the tail, which then breaks at the tail
and starts again...but sort of in a broken line.
Underside is cream to white. Very pretty little snake.

About 18 inches long.... I thought maybe it's some type of ribbon snake? I'm so used to looking at Corns, Gophers/Kings
and Pit Vipers and other native stuff that when I
see something different...I'm at a loss.

This AM it is doing MUCH better, actually flicking it's tongue at me...yesterday it was so limp it was almost dead. Standard husbandry in place...I was also able to express some very badly hardened feces which seemed to help a lot. He's getting hydrated and has a full belly...I could hardly get that fuzzy shoved down his throat, but it was the smallest prey item I had.

If ya know what it is, please shoot me an e-mail. I'd
greatly appreciate it. Please ignore the toad pic...I can't seem to post this message without it...

Annie Lancaster
Director
TortosieAid International Inc.

Sounds like a garter accept for the broken stripe. HAve you considered that it might be a striped phase California king snake? Check out this link.
Link

Yes, that's him! He is small though...less than 2 feet long so I guess he has a bit of growing to do!

I am good with snakes...but haven't had a King before....any tips you can give me would be appreciated...also, I don't know if this is a WC or Captive animal, a woman at a pet store just handed it over to me...I do live int he Mojave Desert...I guess it "could" be native but all I've ever seen out here are banded Kings...never, ever a striped one. Poor thing was literally limp in my hands. It is looking MUCH better today...I know I'll probably have to get smaller prey...he's got a nice water bowl to soak in, basking and hiding areas, etc. etc. in a 60 gallon terrarium.

Thanks so much for your help!

99% likely it's captive bred, they are bred in large numbers and rarely wild caught. King snakes are excellent pets, from the description of your care, it's sounds like you know what you are doing. These snakes are very hardy and he will most likely recover quickly. Keep in mind that they do eat other snakes so if you handle other snakes in your collection the smell might make your hand a target. You can use sheds to entice him to eat, although I have never had a problem getting them to eat rodents, good luck!

Cool. I think this little dood will have a long and happy life...at least I hope he will...

He was in the middle of a very BAD shed...I had to get the rest of it off myself. Looked to me like he'd had a couple of bad sheds...took me over an hour to get it all off of him. The person who gave him to me had him on fresh cedar shavings...pee-yoo! (I wonder if that is part of why he was so ill when I got him yesterday)...he is in aspen shavings now, he is making little tunnels in there for himself and enjoying basking, I don't think he even had a basking light or anything before...poor thing. I hate it when ppl get animals they know nothing about...at least she gave it to me so now it has a chance.

What are the best foods for a King about 16 inches in length? That's a pretty small mouth...and the fuzzy I had was a chore to get down...but I had to feed him something, it was all I had. He is thin, he could definitely use some weight. Pinkies might do it..but I think something even smaller would work better...I want him to be able to eat easily...not have to work so hard at it right now.

I would stick with pinkies and fuzzies. If you need to force feed him, small goldfish go down with the least amount of stress. Just make sure the gold fish are fed alive or recently frozen to avoid vitamin B deficiencies.

Hi,

What I use for forcing things that struggle with day old pink mice are the tails from weaner rats. Very easy to force fed. With most juveniles it digests fairly quickly (within 4 to 5 days) and you can then feed the neonate again.

If I was in your position though...as a general rule it is much better to initally give a small feed to a snake that has not been eating for awhile rather than a big feed. As the stomach and rest of the digestive system has not been in use for awhile its better to ease it into life with a small feed and work up to bigger feeds in the subsequent feeds.

Regards,
Scott Eipper

>>Hello everyone,
>>
>>Yesterday someone gave me a sick snake...I don't know what it is, and I don't have a digital camera.
>>
>>Here is a description of it, it's the best I can do
>>for now. It is VERY thin...but I did get a small fuzzy shoved down the hatch lte last night.
>>
>>The top of the small head has a single white spot on
>>the parietals, the head is black. The rostral,
>>internasal,supralabial, and sublabial areas are also
>>white, with black outlining....basically everything
>>below the jaw has this feature. (Looks really cool!)
>>
>>The body is dark brown. There is a single cream to
>>white longitudinal stripe, which extends to the
>>beginning of the tail, which then breaks at the tail
>>and starts again...but sort of in a broken line.
>>Underside is cream to white. Very pretty little snake.
>>
>>About 18 inches long.... I thought maybe it's some type of ribbon snake? I'm so used to looking at Corns, Gophers/Kings
>>and Pit Vipers and other native stuff that when I
>>see something different...I'm at a loss.
>>
>>This AM it is doing MUCH better, actually flicking it's tongue at me...yesterday it was so limp it was almost dead. Standard husbandry in place...I was also able to express some very badly hardened feces which seemed to help a lot. He's getting hydrated and has a full belly...I could hardly get that fuzzy shoved down his throat, but it was the smallest prey item I had.
>>
>>If ya know what it is, please shoot me an e-mail. I'd
>>greatly appreciate it. Please ignore the toad pic...I can't seem to post this message without it...
>>
>>Annie Lancaster
>>Director
>>TortosieAid International Inc.
>>
-----

RATS
1.0 Corn snake "Warpath" (KY locale)
0.0.1 Corn snake (KY locale)
1.0 Black rat snake "Havok" (KY locale)
1.1 Black rat snakes "Reaper and Mystique" (MO locale)
1.0 Albino Black rat snake "Malakai" (Dwight Good stock)
1.0 Everglades rat snake "Deadpool" (Dwight Good stock)
0.1 Greenish rat snake "Rogue" (Dwight Good stock)
0.0.1 Great plains rat snake (TX locale)
1.0 Grey rat snake "Punisher" (White oak phase)(Dwight Good stock)

Good luck and Happy Herping
Brian