bting himself.

[marisa]

As I have stated before, I have a Mexican Black Kingsnake that was fed in tank for three years prior to when I got him recently. Now he is a tad better, but often bites himself.

I am wondering because just now when I gave him some water, he bit himself after striking at my hand and missing. It goes into such a open mouth feeding frenzy he often does this. But lets go. He gets a good bit on himself.

What is the deal with this? He won't hurt himself? I haven't seen injury so far, or blood or anything but DAMN he bites hard

marisa

[Linds]

Is it at any specific times? Sometimes snakes will bite themselves if they have the smell of prey on themselves. One of my snakes once tried to bite me and missed and got himself. Another reason a snake may bite itself habitually is due to pain and/or sickness.

[marisa]

Yes. It only happens when I lift the cage lid to remove water dish, move hide etc.

When he hears the cage lid open, and see movement he immediatly starts thrashing around trying to grab anything he can grab....and then sometimes he will whip around and miss me or the water dish or whatever is moving, and end up biting himself. He doesn't turn around and bite himself on purpose, i dont think. It looks more like he works himself up so much because of the lid being opened that he just bites anything he comes into contact with, and sometimes its himself.

We have been feeding him in a seperate container sice we have had him and seen a little progress but he continues to work himself up when the cage is opened. He was fed in it for so long I am afraid he will never stop this or hurt himself before we can work him out of it. His teeth really go in there, I have heard a noise like a "click" when he pulls off himself. Like his teeth catching on his scales then releasing.

marisa

[patricia]

I don't know whether or not it's worth trying, but maybe you could feed him more and do so more often. If his tummy isn't so empty, maybe he'll be calmer.

The reason that this occurs to me, is because I have friends with a ten-yr-old Cal-king that was always in a frenzy every time that his cage was opened. They had him on a one prey-item per week schedule. About three years ago, they started offering larger meals, and he's calmed down considerably.

When he was a baby, and I baby-sat him, he was so fierce that it scared me to open his cage (that was before I realized how painless the bite of a baby snake is). The unfortunate corollary of the increased feeding, is that he's now rather on the pudgy side. But, at least they can handle him without getting bitten.

[marisa]

Maybe I should up his food intake....my cal king eats twice a week and stays fairly slim, but if I feed my larger corn that much he gets a bit of fat almost right away. I think the kings can handle a bit more food so I think your idea is a good one.....

marisa

[patricia]

I've never kept kings myself, so don't know enough about them to be sure; however, I suspect that they may be more nervous or more active species than the elaphe guttata and elaphe obsoleta. Perhaps they have a faster metabolic rate?

[marisa]

I am sure some will say they have corns more active than their kings, but I think on a whole kingsnakes are more active. They will also be active in the day while most corns prefer to hide until dark. I am speaking generally of course.


Hopefully he will stop it before he hurts hmself. He is a crazy snake.

marisa

[Jonathan Crowe]

I've noticed this with kingsnakes before. My take on kingsnakes is that they get completely stupid and wired whenever food is involved: feed them and they go nuts and need to be hooked if you were feeding them outside their cage. I've seen kings bite themselves during feeding when their mice kersploded and got some guts on themselves, for example, but I think they just bite everything that moves when they're fed, sort of a feeding frenzy.