California Banana King

[brylecc1989]

Hey everyone. Just picked up my second snake yesterday, a beautiful baby banana king. Shes 16 inches right now and friendly as anything. A couple half hearted strieks when i pick her up but once she realizes it's not dinner time she's a doll. Anyone else have these? Do there temperments stay like this? Anything anyone has to say about cali's or any advice to a new owner like me, always welcome. Thanks in advance.

Bryan

[stephanbakir]

Not sure about banana kings but in general you never want to keep a king with another snake, that being said grats on your new snake!

With larger snakes you should learn to hook train but with any bitey snake (even the lil ones) you can replace the hook with a paper towel roll and accomplish the same thing

[brylecc1989]

Yea i've been torn about gettign a hook. For now i think ill withstand the tiny bites of my king and pray to the serpent gods that my carpet continues to resist the urge to chomp on me :)

[sassy_snake_lady]

I have a few kings and milks. One is a Cali King and he is great. He did decide to bite me a few days ago and in true king fashion, he held on for about 5 mins and had a good old chew on my hand. I would never use a hook with him though.

[stephanbakir]

To me, getting bitten isn't too bad for me, pain is just pain you deal with it and move on. That being said biting might not hurt you badly, but it can break teeth on your snake.

[stephanbakir]

I have a few kings and milks. One is a Cali King and he is great. He did decide to bite me a few days ago and in true king fashion, he held on for about 5 mins and had a good old chew on my hand. I would never use a hook with him though.
Contrary to popular belief using a hook isn't bad. There are ways of doing it correctly and ways of doing it wrong like anything in this world.

[sassy_snake_lady]

Contrary to popular belief using a hook isn't bad. There are ways of doing it correctly and ways of doing it wrong like anything in this world.


Not saying it's a bad thing at all. I would just never use one for him. My hissy boa may be a different story once she's bigger lol

[stephanbakir]

That's why you use a paper towel roll on smaller snakes, it's too light to harm them even if you try and it's something everyone already owns. The only time I'll use one is when removing angry mommy's from their eggs.

[Lankyrob]

We use a hook purely for our GTP to get him out of his viv - he treats it as another branch and climbs onto it which saves trying to manually get him to let go of the perch he is on.

[stephanbakir]

Lots of people own GTPs, you are one of the only ones that I know of that give them the space they require.