Finicky Eastern King Snake

[SkyChimp]

My mid '06 Eastern King Snake (sold to me as male, but is really female) is the finickiest eater I've ever had. Most Kings are garbage disposals, but mine isn't, and it's driving me nuts, and making me think about the future.

It seems my King will not eat anything white, or with lots of hair. I started her out on pinkies, then moved to fuzzies. I was able to get my hands on a mix of brown fuzzies and some white fuzzies. She would only eat the brown fuzzies. Now I need to move her up to small adult mice. But she refuses any white adult, and brown adults are hard to find. I did try a brown adult and fed that to her and she swallowed the head then spit it out. Since then, she ignores furry adult mice, mouthing only the brown ones and totally ignoring the white ones. So I bought some hairless rat pinkies which are about the same size as small adult mice and she scarfs them up. I think I can get "virtually hairless" rat pups, but after that I don't know.

Anyone ever run into this problem? It seems like a little issue, but its quite annoying. My snake is a captive born offspring of 2 wildcaught Kings.

 

[Nanci]

I think you could wean her off them somehow. I wonder if she would eat spotted mice/rats. What about hooded rats that have black heads? What if you dyed one dark blue with food coloring, and found out if she would take that? If she would, you could very gradually lighten the color. What a PITA.

Nanci

 

[tricksterpup]

How often do you feed??
Have you thought about skipping a couple of feedings and make your snake good and hungry?

 

[tyflier]

I have an MBK that would, for the longest time, ONLY eat live...not stunned, not f/k...she required live, wriggling food.

I got her interested in f/t only by reducing her feedings from every 5 days to every 10 days. Once I increased the length between feedings...she stopped being picky.

It seems, at least to me, that some snakes see weekly feedings as a "windfall" situation, and this reinforces their desire to be picky. When you restrict the amount of feedings, the instinct to feed opportunistically seems to come back into play... :shrugs:

It worked for me...

 

[SkyChimp]

I feed her once every 6 days. She -could- eat more. She seems to digest and poop within about 3 days of a feeding. She is also going into shed about every 5 weeks or so. She used to eat during shed, but now won't touch food the moment she enters blue and for a day after she sheds her skin.

I don't mind feeding rats, but if she get big enough, I may be stuck feeding multiple rat pups instead of larger haired meals.

I'm not used to a picky Eastern King. I've caught and kept quite a few and I've never had one that was picky. I've fed them everything from a ringneck snake, to a water snake, to mice, to a hotdog (in my younger, less enlightened years). Like I said, they are usually garbage disposals.

 

[Roy Munson]

It seems my King will not eat anything white, or with lots of hair...

I have a snake that used to be very discriminating. He wouldn't eat anything white either. All my f/t mice were white, so it was a real pain. At first, I thought that he was demanding live. My local pet store's feeders are mostly brown or black, and he subdued and chowed those readily. But one day I brought home a live white mouse, and he wouldn't go near it. I didn't really know what to make of it, so I gave him a few days. Then I bought him another live mouse, but this one was brown. I pre-killed it, and he took it! For his next feeding, I offered a thawed and well-dried f/t, but I put him in a dark closet to eat. He ate it, and he's been eating f/t since. After a couple of months, I started feeding him in regular light, and he was fine.

 

[SkyChimp]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to have to feel this one out. I'm not sure where she is going and I'm not sure if I've seen enough to pinpoint what she likes and doesn't like. She doesn't eat again for 4 days.

In the meantime, I'm going herping tomorrow, hoping to find some kings in a local park.