Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was thinking about buying a pair of garter snakes to breed. Not W/C. First of all, is it legal to own garter snakes in illinois with out a permit? As in buying a pair, not catching a pair. And can you feed mealies to a garter?

>I was thinking about buying a pair of garter snakes to breed. Not W/C.

In some ways, catching your own is the better choice. If you buy, you may be getting snakes that somebody else caught in the wild. You have to be certain that you are getting a pair of the same kind of snake. And you have to take care that you are not getting a colony of mites along with the snakes. So pay attention to the seller's reputation.

If you are near Chicago or Champaign, check out the local amateur herpetological societies. And do a google seach for Illinois and herpetological society for others. There are usually experienced people in these societies who are willing to help newbies with advice and sometimes excess stock.

>First of all, is it legal to own garter snakes in illinois with out a permit? As in buying a pair, not catching a pair.

I am not an expert in the law, and I am not an Illinois resident. I would recommend checking the Chicago Herpetological Society's web page and looking up the links to the Illinois Code. In addition, your city and/or county may have local ordinaces that would affect your plans. The public library, City Hall, or County Government office is the place to check for that sort of thing.

>And can you feed mealies to a garter?

Absolutely not!

Garters eat earthworms (AKA dewworms, nightcrawlers), fish, and amphibians. With scenting, they can be persuaded to eat baby mice.

The single best spot to get information about keeping garters is a book by Douglas Rossman, et al., The Garter Snakes: Evolution and Ecology. It's fairly expensive and most often in a university library. But interlibrary loan can get it.

You can get a lot of information just looking through old messages in this forum's archives. And there is at least one fairly active garter snake group on yahoo.com.

There are several care sheets on the web that cover garters.

Good luck.

Paul Hollander

Chicago Herpetological Society web page

Ok, today i found 5 garters, 2 of which were mating while i found them. I let 4 go, and kept the pregnant female. She has some earth worms and pinkies in her tank, a water bowl, and a hide. Shes on paper towels. Im 99 percent posative its a plains garter snake. Would the babies be captive bred or W/C? Im guessing captive bred. I found somthing called John Levell Herp Laws saying i can only keep 2 w/c garters and i have to get a permit, so am i better off just buying and obeying the law, or letting this female have her babies and keeping the babies and leting her go?

I do not recall off hand Illinois State laws. Your best bet would be to contact the Illinois department with jurisdiction. I do believe you will need a license to sell or barter any offspring if that is what you are planning. Many states also have laws prohibiting releasing CB offspring or WC animals back into the environment after they have been in captivity. You may want to check Illinois legislation on this as well.
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Randy Hallman

Yeah, i would need a permit to keep a w/c snake, and the same permit to be able to sell or barter the babies of the w/c snakes. Thats why i was thinking i would be better off paying to get some CB than buy a permit and have to wait on that.

Keep in mind that if your cb snakes are of a species native to Illinois you may still need the same permits. If you are planning on doing any shipping you will want to start early in setting up a FedEx account. They have a special set of hoops to jump through before you can ship snakes.
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Randy Hallman

http://www.chicagoherp.org/laws/levell.htm

Thats the site.
Correct me if im wrong, but i think thaat you only need a permit to catch one pair of snakes, and sell w/c snakes babies, you cannot sell the w/c snakes.