Help--is this a corn snake?

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Originally Posted by digcolnagos

(offered a FT pinky and a live one, albeit one that looked too big. My SO has just offered pieces of hot dog).

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OK, I admit, I know nothing about Kingsnakes, but somehow I don't think that processed meat scraps (which is what hot dogs are) is something you want to feed this snake. I'd stick with pinkies for now.

LOL! thats the funniest thing i've read today! Hot dogs taste so good! :D

Anyways, I would personally let that animal go, we found a baby eastern milk snake, and after 3 days put him back out, he wouldnt eat, and again, you never know what they may carry. I would have forgotten to wash my hands at some point. only a matter of time. Nice catch though, real pretty, nice red saddles

That is definitely not a corn. So yeah. Lampropeltis calligaster calligaster it is.

First let me say I am not one of the wild caught are all bad crowd, :rolleye2: so take what I have to say as just advice that may or may not be wanted.

First the problem getting one of these snakes at this size to eat is it has probally been feeding on small snakes and lizards until it was collected. Think about it pinkies are not the easiest thing to find on demand for snakes in the wild, let alone then fuzzies, then weaners all nice and size appropreiate as they grow.

So many snakes (specificly kings in the US) either eat smaller snakes or lizards when young until they are big enough to subdue the average mouse or rat. So your goal now is to quickly see if you can move him to mice, provide lizards or small ground snakes and then scent him over.

To get him strait to mice try a week of total non touching, peeking, etc. Give him 14 hours of light 10 of dark during that time and introduce a pinky in the evening at the end of that week. If that does not work try a gecko or lizard if you can get one. If he eats that try next scenting a pink. If none of this works then turn him loose.

One caution I have seen people feed ringneck snakes to kings with almost lethal results. Ringnecks while harmless to humans have a venom much like a coral! While some kings are somewhat immune to viper venom apparently elapid type venom even injested is highly toxic to them. I only bring this up because in some areas up north the little rings are very common and small and because of this I have seen it done more then once always with a regurge as the best possible result.

It could be a prairie king, but the saddles and other patterning doesn't quite look like a typical prairie king. Through my searching I have found 2 different types of coloration when it comes to Prairie kings, I have one of them which is a grey-blue ground color with "tarnished gold" to chocolatey colored saddles, and the other is more like the colors you have there. But the markings aren't typical of either type. To me it looks more like a gopher snake, which are fairly common throughout North America. Just my opinion.