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Posted by hotshot on March 04, 2003 at 12:41:40:
In Reply to: Cali kingsnake - bunch of questions posted by krapylet on March 04, 2003 at 01:06:39:
:I have a few issues, though. :They both escaped yesterday. Someone said they were escape artists somewhere, and I can believe that. Anyway, I found them again, and as usual, the male was aggressive, so I quickly put him back. I tried to handle the female for a bit, but she kept hissing, so I put her back in, too. I would suggest you use paper towels or newspaper for substrate, it is not that eye pleasing, but works very well, is absorbant, and can be changed very easily. I use newspaper for my baby snakes up to yearling size. You can use shredded aspen if you want something more appealing as for looks. It is very absorbant, cheap, and is easy to clean. But do not feed on it. I feed all my snakes in a seperate feeding container, including adults. The shredded aspen could be accidentaly ingested and cause impaction and possibly death. I would get the heat rock out of the cage. Those things are not safe at all! They can overheat and burn your snake very badly, I have seen snakes burned so badly by a heatrock that they had to be put down. You should get yourself an under tank heater. These are far more reliable. I personally use heating pads bought at Wal-Mart. They are IMO better than a UTH because they come with a flannel sleeve and come with a setting switch. A UTH must be stuck to the bottom of the enclosure with the adhesive sticky stuff on one side of it. This can be a pain for 2 reasons: 2. If and when your snake is ready to move up to a larger enclosure, you must buy another UTH. It is almost impossible to pull the UTH off of the old enclosure without damaging it. Once off, it usually will not stick very well to the new enclosure. With the "human heating pad", you can just set the enclosure end on it that you designate the "warm" end. Turn the thing on the lowest setting and make sure it gets the enclosure to the desired temp. If not warm enough, set it up on the next setting..etc. etc. The warm end should be around 77-80F and the cool end should be 72-74F. This will allow the snake to regulate its body temps. Too hot, and the snake could go off feed and become aggressive. Too cold and the snake will become lethargic, possibly regurge and go off feed. You have to find that happy medium and keep it there. That is why you should also have a temp guage at both ends and as close to the floor of the enclosure as you can get it. This will give you pretty accurate readings on the temps. You also need a humidty box during your snakes shed phase. Once the snake goes into the "blue", you should put a humidity box in the enclosure to help your snake have a complete and healthy shed. You should have a water dish large enough for your snake to soak in if it so desires, and a hide on the cool end and one on the warm end. This is so your snake will have a hide on either end, and can thermoregulate with out being stressed. Snakes like to feel secure, this is why when they are small they hide most of the time. This is just the natural survival instinct that millions of years of evolution have implanted in the animal. You have to remember that out in the wild, a baby snake is food for a multitude of predators, thus they hide during the day when most predators are out hunting. That is why you wont see a baby snake that often during the day. But later on in life as they grow, they naturally know that the predator base becomes smaller and the less they must hide. Also, I would not house these two together. Kingsnakes are cannibalistic and will eat other snakes. Especially if one is hungry, doesnt matter if one is male and the other is female. Snakes in the wild are a solitary animal and only come together on 2 occasions. To mate and to hibernate. You can chance it, and maybe you will get lucky and one will not eat the other. But then you have to worry about the female getting pregnant too early in life, and could become egg bound during pregnancy. This could kill her. If she didnt get egg bound, you would then have the responsibility to hatch out the eggs. For this you would need an incubator and lots of info to be successfull. For me the cons far outweigh the pros. If it were me, I would get an enclosure for each snake. Better safe than sorry. I think I have covered just about everything. If not, someone please add any further info to help this new herper out.
:I bought two californian kingsnakes a week ago, one male and one female. I proceeded to buy a 240l (roughly what they are supposed to require) size aquarium for them (Terrariums are almost impossible to get here, snakes aren't even legal to own)
:These guys are pretty young, they're roughly 15 inches long, and the male bit me the first day I had them and tried to handle him, while the female was perfectly handleable the first day.
First off. When you get a new snake, you should put it in its enclosure and not handle it for atleast a week. This is to allow it to settle in. I would not recommend feeding it during this time either. The stress of moving into a new environment could cause it to regurge, and this could lead to non-feeding and eventually death. Once the snake has been allowed to settle in, then you can feed it. Once a snake has fed, do not handle it again until a minimum of 48 hours (2 days). Too soon could cause the snake to regurge as well.
:The male has continued to be extremely aggressive, if I so much as put my hand in there, he becomes wary and if I go close enough, he'll strike after me. I've fed them once since I got them, and the day after I fed them, the male tried to strike at me.
Do you have a top on your enclosure? If not you need to get one on there ASAP!! Otherwise they WILL escape again, and you may not get so lucky with finding them this time! I would get something on there and get it secured. Snakes will push a top up and off to escape, so if you dont have the top secured, they can push it up enough to still get out. I have the screened lids, and have bought the small metal clips that snap on to the top lip of the enclosure. Cheap insurance to keep from losing your snake.
:Also, I have two plants in there with them. The female loves to bury herself under them, and the male likes to climb (which is how they got out)
:So I was also wondering if it's a bad plan to have any plants down there with them?
:I also have a heater rock.
It is ok to have plastic plants in there with your snakes, but I wouldnt put a live plant in the enclosure. Watering the plant would keep the humidity levels too high and this could lead to repiratory infection. Also the dirt needed for the plants would not be a good substrate, as it would get full of bacteria from the snakes feces.
1. You cant remove it to clean the tank with soap and water, so care must be taken not to get the UTH wet.
Good luck and happy herping
Brian Baker
:Sorry if this got longish, I'm just sorta uncertain on what to do, I even went to the library to get some books on the topic, but they didn't say much about kingsnakes at all, much less how to care for them.
:Thanks in advance
