Maritime garter snakes

[peregrinefalcon]

Does anyone else keep this subspecies of garter? I have one, and it just got out of brumation a couple of weeks ago. I was getting fusterated because it wasn't eating the guppies I was offering it. As soon as I gave it a few worms it has been a pig, even eating a worm-scented pinky! If you want to see a pic of him click this http://groups.msn.com/theplatedlizardburrow/maritimegartersnakes.msnw How can you tell the sex of these snakes without probing or popping? It has something to do with the tail lengths right? Thanks very much, and by the way his name is Kramer :)
Adam

[Tim_Cranwill]

Great looking Garter! :)

[Burmies]

Sorry to say that I do not keep any but it is something to look in to.

Burmies

[eyespy]

yep, it's all about tail lengths if you don't want to get too personal. Here's a nice article about some of the more common garter species with a discussion about how to evaluate tail length and shape:

http://www.thamnophis.com/artic22.htm

I'm not sure why folks say that it's tough to get garters on pinkies, I've kept most of the Thamnophis species and the only one I could never get on pinkies was the western ribbon. Most take a scented pinkie quite readily and take unscented ones before long. I've never kept a maritime though. After seeing your pic maybe I should look into them!

Also, after seeing your pic, I'm going to hazard a guess and say Kramer is a male. Of course, it's just a guess and I could be way off. The tail looks long to me, is all.

[peregrinefalcon]

Thanks for the info! That is a good thing to have in case I ever have any problems with him. And yea I agree he is probably a male, but I'm going to wait a while longer to pick him up and get a closer look because he is *very* skittish right now. I hope I'll be able to tame him down.
Adam

[Jonathan Crowe]

That looks like a pretty young garter snake. Females get quite a bit bigger and huskier than males, and tend to move around the cage a lot less, so within a year or so, assuming it feeds well, you might be able to hazard a guess as to its sex without probing. In my (limited) experience, males don't get much larger than two feet or so.

I've also noted that some garters will eat fish but refuse worms, and some will refuse fish but eat worms. Both kinds seem to be able to eat mice. I'd advise getting that snake onto a mouse diet if you want to be able to maintain body weight and promote growth.

[Simon R. Sansom]

Hi Jonathan,
It's nice to see you here.
I know that you have a lot of experience with Thamnophis in general, and I'd like to ask you if you have noticed any health problems resulting from giving garters rodents as a main diet?

Thanks!

Simon

[eyespy]

I'm not Jonathan but in my experience garters who switch to rodents are much healthier. Fewer flukes and other nasty parasites since they don't eat fish anymore, and better calcium levels to boot. Plus you don't have to worry about stargazing syndrome from the thiaminase in most common feeder fish causing neurological problems.

Both of my current males are around 36 inches, but they are a western ribbon and a plains and both of those species are well-known for their big boys. The plains is quite the youngun, too, hatched in 10/01.

[Jonathan Crowe]

In my experience, garter snakes that don't switch to mice and refuse to eat anything but live fish get heavy parasitic infections and/or die. I lost a melanistic eastern garter snake and an eastern blackneck garter snake, both gorgeous (albeit not super friendly) animals, neither of which would eat anything but live fish (though the melanistic would take scented mice, once in a while).

I've had to have enough worms pulled out of some garters that I now recommend against using live fish as garter snake food if it's at all possible.

I'm coming up on three years of nearly exclusive mouse diets for my male red-sided garter and my breeding pair of wandering garters.

[Simon R. Sansom]

Thank you very much for the info Jonathan!
I am considering some Eastern Black-Necks myself this season. Are they a diffcult rodent feeder? If they are too much of a pain, I won't bother getting them. They certainly are pretty, aren't they?

Cheers!

Simon

[Vanan]

Hey Jonathan! Nice to see you here! What better person to answer Thamnophis q's!

I got rid of all my Thamnophis. Wanted to stay legit in BC. I was gonna be getting some eastern black necks too. Man!! I gotta move out of this damn province!!

[Herp guy]

I also keep these subspecies. Guppies NEVER worked for me. I tried the rosy reds and they work perfect. You can tell the sex by looking at the tail. A male will have a definent start of the tail and a females will keeps going and you have no clue to where it starts.Eyespy, i keep the plains too.I have 17 of them. I bought all of the babies from the pet shop. I only have 2 left which are my breeding pair.

[peregrinefalcon]

Thanks for all the help, but I am sorry to say Kramer escaped his cage :( I tore apart the room looking for him and found not him, but a hole where the carpet meets the wall, just small enough for a 9 inch garter to get through. I'm hoping I'll be able to find him again, if I don't I think I will get another one though.
Adam

[eyespy]

Keep your chin up and your eyes open, peregrinefalcon. One night my evil cat knocked the weights and screen top off of my plains cage and both Dante and Lilith made a mad dash for it. Even though I heard the weights crash down to the floor and was there almost immediately all I found was a slighly musky poop. :(

Dante materialized 3 to 4 week later right next to my couch looking fine except he lost the very tip of his tail.
The plexiglass divider I had in the cage had cracked when Buster broke into the cage and that's probably what injured him.

Lilith was found crawling across my bedroom floor 3 MONTHS later, looking almost identical to how I remembered her, hardly any thinner. She grew nearly 2 inches over the next 3 months though. :D

[peregrinefalcon]

Wow, that gives me more hope! Thanks, and you can call me by my real name if you want :D
Adam