Garter info

[Leiurus87]

As for bites, this one is gentle. I havent handled much, since its still quite jumpy. We have some gorgeous blue stripes down here, i hope to find one of them one day. Theres lots of them around my property, but are quite elusive.

 

[Alice]

well, of course they do not eat cow parts in the wild - still those are effective to get an unwilling hatchling to eat (for soem reason they love it) or to get a female back to strength after giving birth - as i said, loads of protein. as for earthworms: i havn't fed them, my breeder told me that they will cause indigestion and are no good.
is it legal to feed frogs in the us? if not, i must insist that fish and chi... uh, mice, is a great diet for garter snakes. they love fish - if at first they don't want mice, you can rub them on a fish and most of them will start eating rodents.

 

[EAD063]

No, we're allowed to feed live vertebre and amphibians, although certain places won't sell you certain things like lizzards, frogs, mice, etc if they know you are going to feed it, but thats mostly the big places like petsmart and petco, I know because they wouldn't sell me a darn goldfish for my buddies croc tank. I think that the overseas laws which prevent this are in good manor though, we're a little too foolish to implement anything of the such in the US. What kind of garters do you have Alice.. they may require different diets as a result of evolution in it's native habitat.I miss keeping these guys.

Ed

 

[Leiurus87]

strange. my petco sells feeder mice, though they are labelled as pets. the employees and managers all know what theyre really for, unless theres a little kid with you. They are one of the few animals that you dont have to sign care forms for because everyone already knows what happens to em. As for frogs, im not gonna take the risk. Too many parasites in WC and petstore frogs are too pricey.

 

[Mushroom Spore]

PS, the red bulb maybe fine for night time, can the tank be put near a big big window(that does't have any air leaks at all) if it can, you maybe able to save a couple bucks by using the natural sunlight for enrichment

NO. Putting a tank in direct sunlight is a good way to kill your animal, no matter what the animal is.

That depends on wether or not the snake can breakdown the bones in the fish, which is where all their calcium hides. I don't know exactly if they can, check they're poop.

If snakes can digest the bones of mice and rats, they can digest fish bones. You won't find bone bits in snake poop...unless there's something seriously wrong with the animal, I guess.

 

[Alice]

i keep thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis (melanistic form) and thamnophis sirtalis infernalis (quite similar to tetratenia, but with blackdots in the red). my breeder keeps over 200 garter snakes though and has succeeded breeding even the rarer and more difficult species like occelatus for about 20 years. he feeds all his garters with mice and fish only and gets very good results. so i'm inclined to trust him on that .

here are some pics of the two beauties i got from him.

 

[Alice]

sorry, i fogot - here's my setup. garter snakes tend to be very active, so give them something to do

 

[AneesasMuse]

Wow! The set up is amazing... and the snakes, too!! Did you do their enclosure yourself? It looks like something I may like to do for a little Bearded Dragon I have.

I want another snake, now

 

[Natemass]

awesome tank and snakes does your breeder have a website?

 

[EAD063]

NO. Putting a tank in direct sunlight is a good way to kill your animal, no matter what the animal is.



If snakes can digest the bones of mice and rats, they can digest fish bones. You won't find bone bits in snake poop...unless there's something seriously wrong with the animal, I guess.

Just curious, why? They are a wild animal, lol. My fish tank is in direct light and I open the shades during sunset each night before I turn off the day lamps in all my scorpion tanks to stimulate the sun setting, they actually usually come out right on que. I wouldn't know really because all the garters I had lived outdoors not indoors.

 

[Mushroom Spore]

Just curious, why? They are a wild animal, lol.

Wild animals in plastic or glass enclosures which have a tendency to hold in the heat from absorbed sunlight and bake them to death. Please stop.

My fish tank is in direct light

Direct sunlight for fishtanks has no beneficial effect as far as I know, but it sure does make algae build up faster.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tank+"direct+sunlight"&btnG=Google+Search is giving quite a lot of results that say it's definitely bad for le fishies.

 

[Alice]

for the setup and how to built it, have a look at my article: http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=80007

after making the backwall, i just put in some peat, plants, ans wood . thnx all, they are wonderful snakes, always active. the infernalis is quite a stunner, though very nervous if you eant to touch her. the sirtalis is very calm and sometimes even wanders out of the tank and onto my hands during maintainance .

if any of you tries to built a backwall, plz keep me posted on the progress, i'd like to know if my article is detailed enough/how i can improve it. thnx!

 

[Alice]

sorry, mind wandering

here's my breeder's website: http://www.liophis.de/

even if you don't speak german, look at the pics of his snakes :drool: - edit: there are three pages in the section titled 'Galerie'.

 

[EAD063]

Wild animals in plastic or glass enclosures which have a tendency to hold in the heat from absorbed sunlight and bake them to death. Please stop.



Direct sunlight for fishtanks has no beneficial effect as far as I know, but it sure does make algae build up faster.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tank+"direct+sunlight"&btnG=Google+Search is giving quite a lot of results that say it's definitely bad for le fishies.

Hmm, I didn't know it the sun would heat the tanks up that much, although I've never expirenced this with the overwhelming amount of search results, people must have had a hard time by doing do. I like the algea the sun causes though, helps keep my tank clean, Thank you for letting mek now that

 

[Frogsarethapoop]

Just curious, why? They are a wild animal, lol.

Wild animals belong in the wild. Not inside a glass cage.

 

[Mushroom Spore]

Wild animals belong in the wild. Not inside a glass cage.

I'm sure people don't belong in concrete buildings and 5x5 cubicles, but here we are.

In other words, let's not start that debate. It never goes anywhere constructive.

 

[AneesasMuse]

Thanks, Alice, for the links... I wish I could translate German The pics were awesome though...

I want one T. radix, "snow iowa"... one T. sirtalis "melano"... and an L. jaegari

...all beautiful!


I found your article to be very comprehensive, as well. I'm just wondering if this spray foam (Great Stuff) we find here in hardware stores would be easier to apply (less epoxy needed). People have used it in reptile vivs with safe results, but I'm not sure about arachnids.

 

[EAD063]

Wild animals belong in the wild. Not inside a glass cage.

With that understood I will proceed to realease all my scorps.

I hope all your questions were anwser leriurus. Pics please!!

 

[Alice]

i know that foam, and i don't use it in tanks for ts or any tank that will ever be frequented by crix. the reason is: some ts and nearly all crix start to gnaw it - looks real bad after a while, though i don't think that they ingest any. cement is for eternity . plus, it looks more rocklike. on the other hand, the foam works great for snake cages and its certainly quicker.

i want a red albino and a flame... and an ocellatus, and... :drool:. but those real flames are just soo expensive - and i have the impression that the young are on hold back as soon as the mother is gravid . anyway, they don't give birth to too many. he's got a great collection, i always spend hours at his place. unfortunately, no more room for snakes .

 

[Leiurus87]

i would take pics if it would stop slithering into and out of the peat moss ;-). its usually only seen poking out its head. when im at work, thats when it has all the explorations to do.