I'm not sure if this is the proper forum for this (are garter snakes considered colubrids?) but I have a concern...
To make a long story short, I had been out looking for snakes with some friends, and we kept two hatchling garters we found. I took one of them, and a friend of a friend that had tagged along took the other one. I told him all the basic rules of husbandry, and to call me if he had any questions. He, however, insisted that he knew all there was to it because he had once babysat a garter from his school over the summer.
Recently, I found out that he had been given another garter snake, considerably bigger than the hatchling I had given him. (I urged him to let this bigger one go, since it was already thriving in the wild, but he would have none of it.) He's keeping them together in a 10G aquarium on fish gravel and dried grass, and had been feeding them 3 or 4 small feeder minnows every two or three weeks. Now he's decided that it's easier to feed them dead fish, so he buys fish from the grocery store and chops them up into pieces to feed to them.
Am I wrong in being upset by this? I've told him time and time again to try and convert them to f/t mice(mine accepted this change in diet very readily and is thriving), but he can't be bothered - it's cheaper for him to feed them frozen fish. And I can't imagine the snakes are getting even CLOSE to the required nutrition from only pieces of fish given to them every couple weeks.
This may not be too big of a deal...
But this guy is frusterating me. He hasn't listened to any of the things I've tried to tell him, and if these snakes are suffering under care like that then I feel I should do something about it, seeing as it was me that let him take the hatchling in the first place.
Oh crud, so much for making a long story short
Sorry about that
Anything you guys have to say would be appreciated!
-Rubix
Concerned
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