How to keep King snake

We want to get a California ling snake to deter rattles or eat rattles in our property, but how do I keep them on our land?

Make your land more appealing to them than the surrounding areas; I'm not familiar with this particular snake, but would expect like most they appreciate good nesting and basking sites, food, and an absence of predators or hassles. If you have pets, they might be a source of stress for such a relatively small snake.

The many morphs of the California King Snake have needs of most snakes.
They want a nice dark place to call home, if there is more than one such home, all the better.
They need a water supply that is always there.
They need a food supply that is relatively constant. (usually they will eat every few weeks, depending on how large the last meal was)
They need places to bask that are close to their home.
They don't want to be "hounded" by humans or other predators. (I list humans as a predator since fear causes many snake deaths every month, (no need to go to years).

If you give them all the above things, you will find that they hang out on your property fairly regularly.

By the way, the California King snake can grow to 6-7 feet long but they are skinny snakes so they seem to be thought of as a smaller snake than they actually are.
By comparison, our speckled Kings get up to 7 feet long while our black Racers can grow to 6 feet long.

We don't do anything special for the snakes, But, since they will go to the hog water buckets if they need a drink and this usually means we loose a snake to the hogs, so we have water available outside of the hog pastures.
All of our gardens have a water tray.


All snakes are going to move fair distances over the period of a year, it is just their nature to do so.

We have black racers and speckled King snakes on our land, they hunt the copperheads as well as the usual mice, rats, lizards, and other critters they like to eat.
We have only seen one copperhead in the last 4 years, and rarely do we get a glimpse of our black racers or king snakes. When we do see one it is usually the tail section just as it fades into the bush and grasses.
We do not antagonize our snakes, we allow them to do what snakes do and for that, they have hung around and kept us from finding copperheads. (the Water Moccasins stay across the road at the pond, and I like that about them).

I know I shouldn't have been bothering him while he was eating but what a great sight. Thanks Mr. King Snake!