When a family walks into my store to purchase a new pet snake, nine times out of ten they are predisposed to purchase a cornsnake. Cornsnakes are common, inexpensive and predictably handleable snakes with placid temperments, and they grow to be a manageable size. Many folks have been influenced by friends and neighbors who have cornsnakes, and there are dozens of color strains on the market. What’s not to like?

Often, the choice is the right one, but I never sell a snake without talking at length to the family. Sometimes, I glean a certain something in these potential pet owners that makes me say, “Look, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a cornsnake; except just about everybody who owns a snake has a cornsnake. You strike me as folks who might want something different.” Then we are on the road to the fabulous world of kingsnakes and milksnakes.


Kingsnakes
Kingsnakes are very similar to the cornsnake in size, captive diet and general care. Their differences are primarily in color and markings, with a few minor twists in behavior. Babies of both kinds of snakes need to become used to handling. I recommend 20 minutes of gentle handling each day, excluding the day after feeding. Baby cornsnakes tend to try to actively slither away from their handlers, as will kings, but baby kings have another ploy that can be aggravating–they will often urinate when initially being picked up. I like to explain to the customer that if a creature several hundred times my size picked me up, I’d probably do much worse than urinate. With regular handling, however, they outgrow this behavior.

Kingsnakes will also sometimes “test bite” a handler to see if he or she might, in fact, be edible. Of course, with baby snakes, there is little to no pain or injury, and this is a behavior that the snake will outgrow with continuous handling. Occasionally, a baby king will actually bite, wrap and constrict a person’s finger, which is ultimately an amusingly silly behavior, though it can be quite startling the first time it happens.

The real draw with kingsnakes is their dazzling physical beauty. Naturally occurring species display an amazing variety of colors and patterns, from the often jet-black Sonoran kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula nigritis) to the over-the-top blue-grey, black and orange bands of the grey-banded kingsnake (L. alterna). Add to that the bewildering number of captive-produced morphs (resulting in snakes with bands, stripes, crosshatches and bric-a-brac patterns, as well as coloring from lavender and pink to lipstick red and tangerine) and customers could practically acquire a snake to match their interior décor.

Kingsnakes are equal-opportunity feeders; in the wild, they will take on an amazing variety of prey, including rodents, small birds, fish, frogs, lizards and even other snakes. In captivity, however, the snake owner should keep them on a steady diet of easily available rodents. Woe to the kingsnake owner who feeds his snake a lizard or snake only to find that his king prefers this tastier food item and refuses to eat anything else.


Milksnakes
Milksnakes are closely related kin (same genus, different species) to the kingsnake and have their own fascinating variety of colors and patterns. They acquired their name because early European settlers in America would often find them in their barns, where they mistakenly believed the snakes to be milking their cows.

Milksnakes are famous for imitating the quite venomous and potentially lethal coral snake, but they are completely harmless and were actually a boon to those early farmers. They were really after the mice that plagued the farms.
One type of milksnake I am particul
arly fond of is the Sinaloan milksnake (L. triangulum sinaloae). It possesses remarkably wide brick-red bands and is typically very reasonably priced.

Many retailers only stock their herp departments with a few varieties of animals–the bare minimum they need to get by. When it comes to snakes, that often means the cornsnake and maybe a ball python. However, offering a few alternatives to the standard selection can make a store unique. Carrying breeds other than those offered by competitors will give the store greater legitimacy and will pique new customers’ curiosity. It will keep them returning to the store simply to ask, “What’s new?”


Owen Maercks has enjoyed being immersed in the world of professional herpetoculture for nearly 30 years. His store, the East Bay Vivarium in Berkeley, Calif., is one of the oldest and largest herptile specialty stores in the U.S.