So, my wife read somewhere that Cali Kings are rather bitey and isn’t really interested in owning one. Is this true in your experience?
Only if by bitey you mean musky.
I’ve been bit by one of our corns multiple times as she’s convinced my fingers are disguised mice, but all the cali king has done is stink us up. She is a 2023 hatchling so I think the behavior is more indicative of her age than anything.
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Ive been musked on by kings and corns more times than I can count. I just keep a pack of wetwipes in the reptile room.
I’ve only ever owned one and yes, he was definitely very bitey and thrashy. I’ve also caught one from the wild and it was pretty calm for the brief time I handled it.
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I have a bit over 20 Cal Kings and a couple MBKs. Most of them will bite at some point. They aren’t all chewers as adults but more do than don’t. I have some that have only ever bitten me a couple times, and others that will immediately try to swallow your finger. They’re extremely confident feeders lol.
Handling them a lot from a young age helps. Not handling other snakes before you handle them helps too. Keeping it in a tank outside your snake room where it can’t smell food all the time would probably help too. Babies almost never bite, they just race around and pee on you. The biting starts later and it’s just their hyperactive food response.
If you get a chill one it’s smooth sailing. If not, you’ll learn to catch it as it flies out at you 
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That’s an interesting thing I’ve noticed. I catch a lot of them herping. I can’t recall ever having been bitten by a wild Cal King.
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This is just a guess but every single time I hear of one biting someone, it is because of a feeding response. It doesn’t seem like biting is their go to defense mechanism so when caught in the wild they aren’t thinking about food, with not dying being their focus
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I only had a couple of bites when mine was a hatchling. She grew out of that and on to musking for a while after that.
Once she was around a year old she mellowed out more and was a bit of a runner but okay
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