King cobras are very picky creatures that live by eating other snakes only. The king cobras in Randers Regnskov are no exception which is somewhat of a challenge for the animal keepers. The keeper of the poisonous snakes, Kristian Sørensen, says; “Most of our other snakes eat mice or rats, that are very easy to breed. It can, however, be a bit problematic to get enough snakes to satisfy the need of two 3 meters long king cobras”.
In such a situation, Kristian has to be a little creative and recently came up with the perfect solution: Snake-marinated rats! “We simple made a soup from some already dead snakes, and when we dip the rats – that at this stage have been euthanized of course – in this “snake-marinade", the rats will obtain a nice smell of snake”, says Kristian.
And it works! Already in the first tryout there was success, and the two king cobras were more than willing to eat the spiced-up rats!
The king cobras in Randers Regnskov have been given snake-marianted rats.
The large poisonous snakes seemed to enjoy the nicely smelling rats.
In nature the king cobra lives by eating other snakes only.
