fiesty albino king

[win1975]

I have an albino California king snake. A very good looking snake. I've had her about 4 weeks now, still a baby, about 15 inches long. I was wondering why she is so touching. I go near her to pick it up and she constantly strikes and hissing at me. I know that they are a lil temperamental () when they are small (messes on ya when picking up) and do strike a lil. I also notice she is starting to shed (the cloudiness over her eyes). This is the first small snake i have dealt with. I used to have an adult albino and never had this problem (of course i didnt have it as a baby). Any advice would help, thanks in advance.

[Lucas339]

well the angry-ness of the snake is two fold here. 1. if it is going into shed, it can be grumpy. 2. baby kings are grumpy!

i have the same....an albino king. mine is a late 08 and is just starting to come around. i pick it up on occasion and touch her every time in get into her tub.

just go about business as usual. wait till after it sheds. keep working with it.

[wilomn]

Let her shed then hold her every day. She'll get used to you that way quicker than if you wait for her to grow up.

The only drawback to calkings is the attitudes of most of the babies. Once they outgrow it, a finer snake is hard to find.

[Hulihzack]

We have a lot of albino cali babies that strike and put on a show when their in their box but once you pick them up they're fine, they really do calm down quickly

[rabernet]

I got my first (and only) cali king baby (also an albino) in October, and he never struck at me, but was the musking KING!

I always had paper towel at the ready to gently wrap around his tail while he threw his little tantrum and just would hold him for about 10 minutes, then put him back up. I did this probably 3 or 4 times a week.

I'd say four months in, he quit the musking and is the sweetest boy ever! I had shown him to someone a few months ago who breeds cali's and they asked me if I held him a lot, because they thought he was extremely calm for his age (and for being a cali).

Just keep working with him/her - they'll come around eventually!

You can see pictures of him on my site (link in the banner).

[BeastMaster]

Ha,ha,ha, sounds like you got a perfectly normal little king. They settle down, just don't put it down when it musk's or strikes, this could encourage the behavior.

FWIW, people are always amazed when I show them mine

[oliverstwist]

it took our cal king prolly 2-3 months to stop striking. we got bit OVER and OVER and OVER.

She is still a pretty testy snake, liuke after we feed her and try to put her back we put a sock in for her to attack while we grab her to put her back.

not a happy camper, she is his snake though, not mine, i wont have a thing to do with her. he loves her