Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all! Although not new to reptiles, I have never experienced the joys of snake ownership. Anybody have some good general advice for me? I'm looking for a black and white striped california king snake, and was wondering what a suitable cage size would be for an adult. I was thinking about a 55 gal tank... is that big enough? Also, what do you normally feed adults? Do they eat pinkies all their lives or do they get big enough for adult mice? Thanks in advance for all your help!
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1.1.0 Leopard Geckos (Booger & Gimp)
1.0.0 Veiled Chameleon (Lucutis)
0.0.7 Fish (Rocky, Charlie, Professor Utonium, & 4 nameless)

Nice choice of a snake.

One of my personal favorites. If you are going with the whole "natural" setup, like most beginning snake keepers do, a 30 gallon aquarium would be a good size for an adult. Although, such a large tank will overwhelm a baby. For a hatchling I would say a 10 gallon tank is good. And it will be a good size until the snake is about 1 year old, by that size it should be around or over 24" long. At that point you can jump to the 30 gallon if you like.

They eat pinkies for the first half-year of life. After that they are usually big enough to eat fuzzies. By 2 years they are well capable of eating adult mice.

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Mike
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake
Updated 10/27 NEW PICS AND NEW SECTION!

Thank you! Your information is most helpful!
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1.1.0 Leopard Geckos (Booger & Gimp)
1.0.0 Veiled Chameleon (Lucutis)
0.0.7 Fish (Rocky, Charlie, Professor Utonium, & 4 nameless)

cali kings are awsome i have 4 of them they are easy to handle, eat well, they look cool, and they are active a ton. (mine are atleast) ive had my desighner cali king for over a year and a half and never had a problem.