? about garter snakes

[mouse]

i've seen dead snakes at my son's bus stop. 3 snakes all together at different times. they seem to be garter snakes. i kinda googled images under garter snakes. they are about as thick as a finger. i think they get killed by cars or kids. would they be hard to take care of? i'm almost tempted to get one (only if they stayed small ). they are real dark/black, light stripe down the middle and some red stripe on the sides.

 

[JohnEDove]

Garters, if that is what they are, are not difficult to care for but until they get large enough to start eating rodent prey they can be somewhat problematic to provide full proper nutrition.
EDIT: BTW From what you describe they sound like Thamnophis sirtalis infernalis/ California Red sided Garter Snakes

 

[mouse]

thanks for the fast reply. do they stay small? i see small snakes in the pet shops, but they usually end up huge when fully grown (ball pythons). i heard that garters are snakes that stay relatively small.

 

[Red Eyes]

Here's a site on garter snakes with pictures that might help you identify the snake in question http://www.thamnophis.com/caresheets/index.php?title=Main_Page.

 

[JohnEDove]

The only Garter species that I am aware of that routinely gets much over 3 feet is Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia/the San Francisco Garter Snake and they are an extremely endangerd species.

 

[El Viejo]

I fondly remember my first snake bite was from a small WC garter snake many years ago. I decided to keep him/her and did so for several months. I remember feeding it minnows and earthworms. He chowed down on them like they were my finger. They are great little snakes-no need to worry about them getting too big. Be careful as they can be real escape artists!

 

[JohnEDove]

I fondly remember my first snake bite was from a small WC garter snake many years ago. I decided to keep him/her and did so for several months. I remember feeding it minnows and earthworms. He chowed down on them like they were my finger. They are great little snakes-no need to worry about them getting too big. Be careful as they can be real escape artists!

I too have a soft spot in my heart for Thamnophis sp.
One of the first snakes I bred was Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis about 31 years ago. In fact this is the first year I can remember not having at least one in a vivarium somewhere around the house.

 

[Mushroom Spore]

i see small snakes in the pet shops, but they usually end up huge when fully grown (ball pythons). i heard that garters are snakes that stay relatively small.

Ball pythons are hardly huge. The common garter snake is between three and a little less than five feet long according to wikipedia...which is the same size range as BPs.

Actual "huge" pythons and boas ten to be up around ten or fifteen or eighteen feet long. Or more than that.

 

[JohnEDove]

I had never seen that wiki article before. Hope no one uses that info as guidelines for keeping a garter. That person even recommends feeding goldfish which can kill garters
A much better site on care and information would be that of Dr. Alan Francis from the UK.
http://www.gartersnake.co.uk/

 

[bigdog999]

John, I disagree about goldfish killing garters. I had a garter for years that I handfed comets. It was very healthy and happy. Unfortuneately I was inexperienced with snakes and added a corn to the same cage, and they got a bacterial infection.

 

[Red Eyes]

I had never seen that wiki article before. Hope no one uses that info as guidelines for keeping a garter. That person even recommends feeding goldfish which can kill garters
A much better site on care and information would be that of Dr. Alan Francis from the UK.
http://www.gartersnake.co.uk/

Are you talking about the link that I had posted above? Maybe I am overlooking the part that they recommend feeding garters goldfish, I see under the paragraph FEEDING and the Typical types of food they have this bullet " ... whole fish (beware of those containing thiaminase, including goldfish) ... "
There is a paragraph with a heading entitled THIAMINASE PROBLEMS and warning people about the problems associated with feeding fish that contain thiaminase. A list of fish containing thiaminase is also provided in the paragraph (it's a bit blurry ) Too bad the link THIAMIN, THIAMINASE, & GOLDFISH doesn't work but there are alot of other articles on the web.

 

[JohnEDove]

No RedEyes, I was talking about the wikipedia article mentioned by Mushroom Spore. That Wiki article is a poor one indeed.

As for anyone disagreeing with the harm goldfish can cause, all I can say is don't bother arguing with what has been proven by science.

 

[Red Eyes]

No RedEyes, I was talking about the wikipedia article mentioned by Mushroom Spore. That Wiki article is a poor one indeed.

As for anyone disagreeing with the harm goldfish can cause, all I can say is don't bother arguing with what has been proven by science.

Thanks for clarifying!

 

[dairy]

I kept a WC garter snake for a summer when I was a kid. Named her Headless Jill, although she did indeed have a head. They are cool little critters, and even the WCs fresh outta the grass don't seem too nippy. They are amazing escape artists though so if you do decided to keep one, use a secure enclosure. I don't know where this 3-5 ft thing is coming from but around here a 2 ft garter is big. Jill survived the summer on a diet of worms, slugs and other creepy crawlers that I caught near where I caught her. She shed in captivity and seemed to be healthy when I released her right around the time I stopped seeing them out and about. I'm assuming that that would have been right around the time they start doing their winter thing.

Look around, they have some really cool coloration patterns.