Basic garter snake care

I love garters, I just don't have the time to care for them as they need. Garters are a lot harder to take care of compared to a corn snake or something similar. The hardest part about keeping a garter is there diet, they never seem to want the same thing and what they want is hard to get. For instance, I had a garter one time that ate nothing but nightcrawlers, one that would eat goldfish, one that would eat only frogs. Now as funny as this sounds, its true. I probably kept over 20 different garters/ribbons growing up. I fed them all the above, plus slugs, pinkies, crawfish, crickets and even moths. They seemed to like it the most when I had half the cage wet, half dry with a warm side of 85, cool side 70-ish. Every garter snake I ever had, I would capture it, let it sit in its new cage for a couple weeks then start feeding it. They can be a strung out snake and will go off feed EASILY! Once they were eating good I would handle them. I had a few older garters that would eat fresh killed mice, but very rarely would they do so. Bait shops are the best place to find food for garters/ribbons as they can sometimes have all these different feed items. Even though garter snakes are more of a marsh type snake (always found aroud ponds/lakes), I have found them in very dry areas also. That is why I always gave them the choice. I never had basking areas for my garters, most of the time they were outside, if they were inside I would provide some sort of "basking spot". This is about all I have time for now, but if you have ANY questions, ask me, email me - I love talking about garters. later guys, hope we can get this thread goin.

I keep all of my garters on aspen shavings with an under tank heater, a large water dish and feed them appropriately sized mice. Wild caught adults can be difficult to get to accept novel prey items, but with persistence and an appropriate item for scenting, most juvies can be converted to rodents fairly easily. My guys are no more difficult to keep than my other rodent eaters. I've read a lot of accounts of problems down the line with parasites, infections, etc. when items like amphibians etc. are fed and nutritional deficiencies with fish diets so I try to get mine taking mice asap. Even a six incher can handle a small day old pinkie, and it makes feeding a lot easier. I've also like keeping the water confined to a bowl because it simplifies cleaning. I've found moist conditions and feces can quickly lead to problems with scale rot. They're great snakes with incredible personalities.

If you're interested in a garter that takes readily to rodents, I'd recommend T. elegans. All of the neonates I've caught locally have taken brained pinkies readily the first time and intact pinkies after that. The one juvie that I kept required his first pinkie to be scented with a treefrog and then took them unscented for every subsequent feeding. They're enthusiastic rodent feeders / feeders in general. I have one guy that's tried to eat my finger on a few occasions.

-Alice

What I would do with my cages is use a small litter pan on one side then use top soil or aspen on the other side. I never had a problem with scale rot etc. I always gave my garters a choice on food due to they were WC. I never kept them as "pets" exactly, I always was more interested in trying to create there natural habitat and examine how they did certain things. They are a very interesting snake. If you know what you are doing, a garter isn't too difficult to take care of, but many people do have problems with them mainly because of there diet. I personally think it is wrong to feed them nothing but mice. Sure, its easier because thats what is readily available, but that is not what makes up there diet in the wild. I have never had a problem feeding frogs etc, especially when store bought or raised myself. Everyone has there way of doing it, this is just my two cents. later

Since I keep my garters as permanent pets. I'd feel guilty about taking wild amphibians to feed my "dead end captives" especially since so many amphibian species are already experiencing population declines (this is very true in my local area). From my observations of wild snakes, T. elegans do take a fair number of rodents in the wild (we had them raid rodent traps to take shrews). I personally do not have the resources to breed frogs in sufficient quantities to keep my guys well fed and since most petstore frogs are wild caught, I don't feel that this is a viable option either. I do try to mix things up by giving them worms and feeder fish on occasion. I have not found any documentation of premature deaths associated with a predominantly rodent diet while I have read about many deaths from parasites in captives that were fed wild prey so I prefer to play it safe. If you're just keeping an animal short term, this wouldn't be as much of a consideration as long as you didn't feed exotic prey items which could result in the introduction of novel pathogens into the wild population when the snake is released.

With my initial post, I was trying to point out that if the correct species was selected, garters are no more difficult to keep than a corn or kingsnake. In any case, the vast majority of captive snakes are not fed a "natural" diet.

-Alice

There is truth in what you are saying, but everyone has there opinion, thats why we are all on here. I do believe they eat mice in the wild and it probably wouldn't hurt to feed them that. I haven't messed with garters in a while, but I do remember getting all my food items from my local bait shop. He had frogs, leeches, crickets, minnows, worms, mealworms etc. This is why I fed my garters frogs etc. I hardly ever fed mice to my garters. You made a good point though. I just always wanted to keep it natural for them, I caught so many garters its unreal, I never kept them for long periods of time unless they were from out of my area. I have considered getting back into garter snakes and I will try the rodent diet. Oh, by the way, you are correct about the diet of corn/rat/king snakes being more than mice, which is correct but it is a lot closer to there normal diet than anything. The eastern garter is basically what I dealt with, having only a couple of the checkerd garters. What would the chances be of bait shop food being wild caught? later

Bull frogs and toads are not all that hard to raise and breed in captivity. In fact the reason I started raising toads was a pet I had laid a bunch of eggs in its terrium and I just went from there. I caught 2 garters one time and both were in the process of eating toads. Of course this all happened when I had no job and all the time in the world, cause it sure did take a lot of time for all them. later

I would imagine bait shop frogs are for the most part wild caught. As you noted, raising frogs is very time consuming, and they would have to pass that cost onto the customer (who's willing to pay a fortune for bait). With the exception of bullfrogs, I don't think that there are many commercial frog raising enterprises. If you're interested in a garter that takes readily to rodents with minimal work, I think a western terrestrial, T. elegans, would be your best bet. Scott Felzer (http://www.gartersnakemorphs.com/) has some really neat melanistic T. elegans vagrans. I think naturalistic enclosures are ideal, but they also have much more associated maintenance. Time is a limiting factor for me, so I try to strike a balance between ensuring my animals' needs are all adequetly met while minimizing the amount of time required to maintain them.

-Alice