Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings! I was directed to this forum by a friend who told me I might be able to get some advise regarding a rather large Desert Kingsnake I adopted last March. He's a big male who was being cared for by a young lady who I'm afraid I have no idea what her knowledge base was, only that she was keeping him in a 20 gallon tank and feeding him 1 thawed mouse a week. I have a moderate background knowledge with snakes and Lampropeltis's in particular, and when I first saw this guy it was very apparent that given his size, one mouse a week wasn't going to be enough to keep this guy happy. Immediately after adopting him I upped his diet to 2 live mice about every 4-6 days depending on his activity, and moved him into a 55 gal tank. He shed for me in May, and is currently about to shed again, but he seems very lethargic compared to last time. Another odd thing is that while most healthy snakes will tend to keep their heads level and "alert", he seems to not be holding his head level when stationary, allowing it to appear as if it's resting on the ground, almost appearing to be dead. As large as he is for a desert king, I suppose it's possible that he's reaching the end of his days from old age, but again, I have only a moderate level of kingsnake knowledge, an frankly he could be just fine, and I'm worrying about nothing. He doesn't show any respiratory disress symptoms (frequent yawning, wheezing, etc..) and when I pick him up he seems like he's still pretty strong and muscular. Just really don't remember seeing him do the "resting his head one the ground" thing before. Anyone have any input on this?

When snakes are in shed, they do not "feel well" so to speak. That is, they will be rather lethargic, especially older adults.

I have seen many an old captive kingsnake that look almost lifeless when deep in shed.

Give him a moist hide - a plastic container that he can fit into filled with damp sphagnum moss or damp coir fiber like Eco Earth. Even a damp washcloth works. Anything to up the humidity locally. Plastic storage boxes work, so do Cool Whip containers if the snake can fit (kings will hole up in amazingly small containers..)

As far as caging, it my opinion from my own experience that plastic storage boxes work extremely well. They come in sizes that are roomy but not too roomy, and they hold humidity. A few holes drilled or poked with a soldering iron in the tub sides and front works really well. Just make sure to keep the lid secure. I use binder clips like the kind for office use. For substrate, aspen is fine, sani chips, packing paper, newspaper, coir fiber, etc.

I keep some rosyboas and a boa constrictor. I used to use aspen and/or sani chips for substrate, and some of the rosies seemed to feed less often. I went to just plain packing paper (rolls at Home Depot, is pretty much unprinted newspaper), and all of my rosies went nuts and started feeding like crazy. They seemed to really like the weight of the paper over them as they hid under it. Not sure about kingsnakes, but the difference with rosies was apparent.