My first baby snake!

[Charles8088]

All very helpful, thank you!

I brought him home today and was pleasantly surprised by his temperament. He had a stuck eye cap, and I was able to gently massage it off with a damp paper towel without much of a fuss!

I know it's probably hard to tell, but any guesses on sex? His tail looks long in the picture, but I don't think it is compared to the body. I can't tell if it tapers quickly or not, as I don't have anything to compare. It seems to immediately get thinner, then stays sort of the same for a bit? I originally guessed female, but now I'm not sure.

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She (or he) is beautiful. Good luck with her. Can't help you in sexing, though. Sorry.

Mine was a little fiesty in the beginning as a baby. After about a year, she started mellowing out. Now she's like a big puppy! Hopefully she don't do much making on you, as mine did. It was like the smell of sardines.

Great snakes indeed. MBK was my first.

[Bogertophis]

Beautiful little king snake! And for noticing & getting the eye-cap off too. I'm no good at guessing king snake tails, they're too ambiguous to tell by just looking. (Needs gentle tail popping if you know how or probes if you've been taught.) Large pinkies first, graduating to fuzzies should be fine, btw. He doesn't look starved either, though sometimes snakes "inflate" when stressed by handling & transport, so that's not an 'absolute' either, but he looks quite good.

I think you're going to enjoy this little guy (or gal). By the way, they're only about 8" long & skinny like a #2 pencil when they hatch, so this is not fresh out of the egg. As Charles8088 hinted, you might get musked or tail-squirted in self-defense: kings don't have a big enough gape to bite effectively, so their self defense as hatchlings involves the other end, lol. But my MBKs weren't bad about this at all- they outgrew it quickly with gentle handling, & this one already looks pretty comfortable with you.

[TayKiren]

There was some shed around the eye as well, so it was easy to see. Looked like a googly eye lol. So far no musking! Completely forgot they could do that (I was aware they could, just forgot in the moment); I would have been in for a rude awakening haha. I was afraid to pick him up because I've never held such a small snake, but I forget how strong snakes are!

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[TayKiren]

Oh yeah, I forgot my main question for raising a snake. Not sure if I'm overthinking this, but how do you know if you're feeding the right amount? I don't want to stunt him by underfeeding him, but I don't want to accidentally powerfeed him, either. I assume it's probably pretty obvious if a snake is underfed, though? I'm not sure how easy it is to do either of these things, so sorry if this is a stupid question. I just want him to grow up healthy!

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[aurum]

Not a stupid question! I also had this concern when I first got my snake, and luckily I will say you get more of a feel for it as time goes on. Power feeding, as I understand it, is pretty intentional and involves actively forcing large meals on your snake much more often than they should be getting them to try and get them to grow abnormally faster. It would be hard to just do accidentally especially if you know what appropriate prey size and frequency should be. Any other accidental overfeeding is technically possible but I also wouldn't worry about it with a young colubrid only on pinkies or fuzzies. Those prey items are not very nutritionally or calorically dense and even if you were feeding a little too much of them it would just go towards growth and not fat accumulation.

For underfeeding, that's actually what I was doing at first. I was just giving my girl one pinky a week which was not enough to keep her full or growing at her size. It wasn't something that was obvious to me based on observation since I hadn't been doing it for long enough that she was losing body condition. That's where research and asking more experienced keepers about your methods becomes really helpful. I learned that doubling up on prey items, especially stuff like pinkies and fuzzies, was very common and what I should be doing. With that said, you've gotten some good guidelines for feeding here, and moving forward you just want to make sure you have an appropriately sized prey item given around every week, although the exact feeding day doesn't matter that much. That can extend to around every two weeks when your snake is an adult.

Of course if you have any more questions along the way this forum has some very knowledgable people so always feel free to ask. I'm looking forward to seeing Bogertophis's insights on this as well.

And gorgeous kingsnake by the way! He should make a very good pet

[Bogertophis]

Oh yeah, I forgot my main question for raising a snake. Not sure if I'm overthinking this, but how do you know if you're feeding the right amount? I don't want to stunt him by underfeeding him, but I don't want to accidentally powerfeed him, either. I assume it's probably pretty obvious if a snake is underfed, though? I'm not sure how easy it is to do either of these things, so sorry if this is a stupid question. I just want him to grow up healthy!

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Keep in mind that colubrids are slender snakes, & their stomach is slender too, so especially when they're small, I tend to feed 2 items (2 pinks or 2 fuzzies) for a while before moving up to a larger size rodent. (As hatchlings, they all start on just one pinky at a time.) It's something that I "eye-ball" so it's hard to give a fixed response to. You don't want to see a big bulge after they eat.

To give you an example, I have a TX longnose snake, whose narrow gape (along with slender body) only allows him to eat fuzzies (10 mm wide x 25 mm long), even though he's about 3' long- so a typical meal for him is 6 fuzzies. He's a special case, btw- in the wild, they're not really rodent eaters at all- they like small reptiles (lizards, small snakes), but he's pushing 20 years old now & healthy, not fat, so I must be on the right track? For a slender 36" long snake, putting 6 fuzzies in his tummy translates to about 6" (one sixth) of his entire length, which is what he's comfortable eating. He actually won't overeat, but he's an unusual in that regard. Also keep in mind that young rodents (pinks/fuzzies) digest pretty easily- furry rodents take more enzymes to get the job done.

Your MB king snake will certainly grow big enough to eat adult mice- I think it helps to look at snake anatomy diagrams though when considering what to put in their stomach. Mostly it won't be more than one adult mouse at a time when he's mature. Like many snakes, your king snake will probably tell you he's "starving" when he isn't: feed the right sized meals weekly for now, & gradually lengthen the interval to 10 days when he's an adult; elderly colubrid snakes do best eating about every 2 weeks.

[TayKiren]

Thank you both! I think I'll go with two pinkies weekly for now until moving him up. I'll definitely be coming back to this thread every once in a while to double check as he grows, if that's okay?

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[TayKiren]

Okay, fed him for the first time tonight. He ate immediately, which was nice. Anyway, I was confident with my temps before, but now that he's eaten I'm getting nervous because that's just the type of person I am. I'm only using a ceramic heat emitter because of how small a tank he is in right now. Right outside of his warm hide, the ground is 89-90 degrees. Behind his hide, where I've seen him hanging out before, is 87-88. Inside his hide is about 86-87. Is this okay, or does it need to be 88?

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[Bogertophis]

I figured he'd eat easily for you, but anyway. High temps. are just fine at 86*-87*. Don't over-think this, the natural world is not controlled by a thermostat. Make sure he can get away from the warmth too, that's equally important.

[TayKiren]

Okay, thank you! I read some things saying lower temps, some saying 88-90, so I kind of did both. But that is just the warm side, he does have cooler temps on the other side.

A perk of adopting from the humane society is that you get a free vet check with participating vets. He went yesterday, and everything looks good! They didn't have probes small enough to sex him, but they said I can bring him back once he's bigger to do that. He gave me some tail buzzing, but he seems to calm down once actually picked up. I imagine it's pretty scary being that small. He was 15 grams, so I think the paper at the humane society probably said 9.3 grams, not 93 grams lol.

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