California King Snake Hibernation?

[cbwill]

I have a baby cali king snake right now and I was wondering how would you know whether your king snake is hibernating or not. I have gradually decreased his day from about 9 hours to 2-3 hours and let the temperature drop to high 60s at night and only about mid 80s during the day on the hot side. He is a little inactive right now but I suspect that it may just be that he is shedding.

Any advice is appreciated.

[Shelby]

Why would you want to brumate your baby cal king? Usually brumating is for snakes you wish to breed.. babies you want to keep warm so you can keep feeding them.

If you let it get that cool at night then you should not be feeding it.. but I'd recommend you keep the snake at normal warm temps since it is a baby.

[cbwill]

Ic....Well originally i wanted to let it hibernate since I was going away for a couple weeks but how long can a baby king snake go without eating?

[Shelby]

2 weeks without feeding won't hurt your snake. You will need someone to look in on it while you're gone though.. to clean the cage and give fresh water at the least.

[recycling goddess]

since it's just a baby... can't you get someone to care for it while you are gone? personally i wouldn't leave my little ones without food...

my bigger guys... i wouldn't mind leaving to miss one feed... but not two.

[knox]

It takes lower temps than that to hibernate, 45 - 50 temps are what you need for brumation.

Snakes, even babies, can go several weeks without eating. They aren't very active, so 2 weeks wouldn't hut the little one at all. Remember, in the wild they aren't fed weekly from a "silver platter".

I would have someone change the water about 2 times a week, though. Other than that, no cage cleaning is necessary for that 2 week time if you are keeping on Aspen - it will absorb it and dry it out, keeping it from smearing all over the place.

This isn't ideal , but it won't do a bit of harm if you need to leave the snake for a period of about 15 days.