Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I currently keep Kingsnakes. I just recently caught a 5 foot black racer. How is the husbandry different for the racers compared to the kings. What is the best way to get it to eat mice? Will I, over time be able to tam it to not be aggressive?

DAVY

Hi there,
Keeping a racer is like keeping a kingsnake on crack lol. I have kept many racers, when i first started keeping racers i tried to tame them by handling them all of the time, which I don't recomend at first. I would leave the racer alone for a while, (a month or so.) Keeping the racer aggressive in the cage will make feeding a whole lot easier. When it comes to getting the racers to eat, I usually offer big racers small bite size meals at first using forceps or long tweezers. Usually a newly caught racer is going to strike at whatever moves in the cage; get the racer to bite the small frozen rodents, then back away.(If the racer is tamed right away by handling all of the time, it may be difficult to get them eating) If the food is small enough they will usually just swallow it, but if it is too big the spit it out. It can take time, but eventually they will accept whatever is at the end of the tweezers. When is comes to taming them, take them out of the cage with a hook and... avoid eye contact! the more you restrain them the more blood you lose lol. eventually they will beg to come out when you enter the room I found that it is easier to keep racers in sliding glass fronted cages. Good Luck!

Thanks for the good advice. I had already started touching and handling it in the cage. I could touch him and it would push me away. I could grab it behind the head and it would just slither though my hand. I could pick it up in the cage and it would just try to get away. It never once struck at me in the cage. It would strike the glass when you walked by though. Haven't got it to eat yet. I will try what you said.

DAVY

One thing I forgot to mention... what state did you catch the racer in? Soon my wild caught racers are going to slow down and eventually stop eating for the winter. There are two options if this happens. Put it into hibernation in the low 50's somewhere in a basement or a closet. Or you can trick it into thinking it is summertime still by keeping it in a room without windows, and leaving the light on in the room for 14 hrs on and 10 hrs off and keep the cage warm/hot.

I caught it in the upper middle Alabama. Thanks for the hibernation tip.

Also you dont ever want to handle a snake behind the head, you'll never get it to calm that way, and may cause it to bite you. Another thing that seems to help with keeping them in captivity is 3 inch deep bedding, something to retreat under is better than just running around on the surface. Oh and live food will likely be taken before dead, and hand movements should be slow, like one inch pr second, this shows you have respect for it. If all this helps and it does eat and calm you should maybe find a mate too, they do better as pairs.