Blackneck Garter Snakes

[infernalis]

I will be happy to take some for you.

[totheend]

I am looking forward to them.....

[siz]

Beautiful! I'm seriously digging the garter snakes lately, I'm definitley going to get one...(sure, one..) I like the red sided garters best I think.

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by siz

Beautiful! I'm seriously digging the garter snakes lately, I'm definitley going to get one...(sure, one..) I like the red sided garters best I think.

I will start a picture thread just for you.

[siz]

Originally Posted by infernalis

I will start a picture thread just for you.

Oh I like you hahaha
Question about the fish - what species do you feed? Where do you get them? I've heard feeder fish can be big time carriers of parasites (I can't recall which ones specifically..) and that you need to be careful feeding fish, especially when you get them from a pet store. This is the main reason why I haven't gotten into garters yet.

[infernalis]

Flash frozen Tilapia fillet from the grocery store.

I also have a good source for guppies & minnows.

As soon as I can get my garters on frozen fish and or pinks, I drop the live fish fast.

[siz]

Haha, really? Right on, that's actually a very good idea! Do you just cut it into strips? How do you portion it for your snakes?
And how do you tend to swtich them over? Scenting then offering a pink? Do you find they are hard to switch over? Do they tend to go back to wanting fish? Are they stubborn feeders?
heh heh, sorry for 20 questions.

[infernalis]

Well in all honesty, Mojo I got from a breeder cheap, she was a non feeding baby, had never eaten a thing yet.

I first got her to take a live newt I caught out back. I locked the newt in a poly box with the baby snake overnight.

Next morning it was gone and Mojo was a bit plump.

I waited a few days and put some live guppies in her water bowl, she promptly took them.

Then I put 2 thawed pinks in the water bowl with the guppies, and when I checked in on her, everything was gone.

I repeated that for a few months then I just put pinks in the water without fish.

Now she lunges and takes the pinks / fuzzies right off the hemostat.

To grow my garters up, I found that chopping up the fish into a mush, chopping up pinks (it's a lot easier while they are still frozen) and I crush reptomin (turtle food) into it.

I call it "Garter Goulash", they readily gobble the mush up. I just put a teaspoon full of goulash in a poly box and lock the snake in the box with the mush, then I go play on my computer for about half an hour, the puddle is usually gone when I check back in on the snakes.

My goulash puts size on them rather quickly.

This little snow couldn't even wait for me to set it in the box!

[Will0W783]

Lol...garter goulash. That has a nice ring to it! They look like they love it too.

[infernalis]

They go nuts over it.

[percey39]

nice garters mate and good discovery with the goulash haha looks yummy

[siz]

Thanks! Appreciate the info. How do you have your garters set up?
That goulash looks scrumptious, hahaha.

[infernalis]

I'll take some pics, the setups vary. I get tanks all the time at rummage sales, free on the side of the road, and I build wood cages with glass fronts.

I have no real standard, as long as they have lots of room to move around.

Garters are one of the very few species that cohabitate well, so I have multiple (same species or at the least same sex) snakes in each cage.

This is a fairly standard common practice, and does not stress them out one bit.

I always feed outside the cage so they don't fight over food.It gets ugly at feeding time if you don't separate them, they will kill each other over a pink!