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Posted by Agalinis on March 23, 2003 at 17:02:51:
In Reply to: Maybe a little misunderstanding..... posted by Jeff Schofield on March 23, 2003 at 13:20:39:
Like Keith said, I've got a CB F1 that's easy 67" fed mice mostly - I'm just starting him on rats. And my former snake, the Terminator (at death 69" and 5.4 lbs or so) only ate rats the last year of his life - he never had a snake...period, end of story. And I doubt you could show that feeding a large king 6 large adult mice is different from feeding them 3 medium rats as far as size goes - predatory generalization throughout their evolution has seen to that.
Not only that, I've got a 2.5 year old, 54" Eastern that has had nothing but mice, and say 4 small mice rather than 2 fatties.
The size of a snake is dependent upon heredity, frequency of feeding, health, parasite load, and finally the type of food it receives. If anything, the largest king will probably be found in captivity free from most harmful parasites and a healthy diet of rats, IMO. There is no proof that I'm aware of that kings have to or need other snakes to get very large...that's the whole idea behind general predation.
Again, as Keith and Brandon pointed out, kingsnakes are predatory generalists. They will eat eggs, amphibians, other snakes, rodents, etc. whatever they can come across and swallow. Kenny Krysko's diss. hypothosized that young brooksi had a genetic propensity for Nerodia, but as they got older adjusted to a diet of mostly rodents in s. Florida and anyone who's seen a wild "brooksi" in s. Florida knows how large they can get.
As far as your 8' king in the freezer...prove it. Thaw it, measure and weigh it, and post the evidence here. You're 8' snake from Maryland is 2" beyond the known size of any KNOWN Eastern.
I'm with you though Jeff - I'd like to see an annual contest here where people post pics of either dead or live Easterns where we can really see how large they are.
