Cal King small meal sizes

[marisa]

Hi!

Has anyone else noticed that California Kingsnakes take far smaller meals than cornsnakes of the same size? I never hear anyone else mention this, and I am wondering if it's only mine....

My biggest, Mojave is about 40 inches long. I have had corns smaller than him easily take prey double the size he can handle. A large adult mouse will get rejected by him. He will try and eat it, no doubt, but will struggle for awhile then release it. He currently eats small adult mice.

I have also noticed this trend with my younger cal kings who only take meals quite a bit smaller than corns of their same size. Obviously kings are a more slender snake in some cases than corns, but like I said I never hear anyone bring this up. Thoughts?


Marisa

[Tim_Cranwill]

Hmmm.... I haven't noticed this. My Sinaloans only take small meals but my Cal Kings are ruthless.

[marisa]

That's weird. My male is far far more weird about it than the others, maybe its a "personal" thing.

Marisa

[Ace]

I don't have any Corns to compare to, but all my Cali Kings will take fairly large prey. My Honduran, on the other hand just got moved back down a size because he doesn't eat consistently enough with the "normal" prey sizes.
Here's a pic of my littlest taking her first fuzzy .

[vanderkm]

Our female cal kings have tackled prey as large as that taken by our corns, but both our males have been much more hesitant about larger prey, even when they were quite big enough to handle it. The prey drive seemed strong, but they would often bite, try and swollow and then give up. Females had no hesitations taking even larger gerbils and rats. Only 2.2 group to base these conclusions on though.

mary v.

[jjnnbns]

Well, both (kings and corns) are supposed to be notorious for eating like crazy, yet my female corn freaks out if I offer anything larger than a small fuzzy mouse!

She could easily take a rat fuzzy or bigger mouse, but whenever I offer she strikes and musks like crazy but only bites and pulls away... very mean and defensive.

I have no idea what her problem is, but I am stuck feeding small meals and either way she has turned from a sweet snake to a mean little $#!+

Why can't my corn and your king follow the stereotype and eat like theres no tomorrow!?!?

[Katt]

I find that ratsnakes eat larger prey than cal kings. It might have to do with the head. Rats seem to have bigger mouths on their heads, than cal kings. Cal kings are just slits at the end of a neck. Whilst rats actually have a pronounced head to speak of a smile that goes from ear to ear.

[marisa]

Yeah good point Katt.

Oh well. I'll just continue offering him multiple smaller meals. :P

Marisa

[MouseKilla]

I've also found, as Katt has, that the Cal Kings have much smaller heads in proportion to their bodies and therefore can't eat prey as large as a corn of the same body size.

Makes sense if you consider that Kings are snake eaters.

My 50/50 went through a phase where he could only eat up to the size of a fuzzy but it took at least 4 of them to put a decent bulge in him and mellow his frenzied food seeking.

I think what it comes down to is they will take longer to transition from one prey size to the next and the effect is that their appetite grows a little faster than their tiny heads do.

[LISA127]

A little of topic, but I recently acquired a young corn snake, about 31 inches long. I am feeding her fuzzies because I wasn't sure what to start her on. Tonight she ate 3 of them. Should I move up to small adult mice? Hoppers are not available in pet stores, and I'm not going to order bulk orders for one snake. So my options are fuzzies or adults. What do you think?

[Kevin McRae]

My bro has an adult amel cal king that was eating large mice, but when we recieved and it was in the same cage and nothing moved, it only ate pinkies for 2-3 weeks, then it finnay started on mice again, probaly have to start rats soon.

[BrandonVeenstra]

Yeah, I've also noticed that. My calking.. at abour 3 years now.. will only take small-medium sized adults.. but will take two in one sitting. Yet, will refuse any larger specimen.