Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My garter (I think it's a plains garter- anyway it's got the same markings, slightly red morph) makes a sort of a clicking sound occasionally. When he does, he opens his mouth slightly and his throat jerks. He doesn't look in pain or anything like that, but I've been checking around, and haven't found it mentioned as normal behavior. Any hints as to what's up?

I'd be concerned about a possible infection or injury based on what you are describing.

Have any other behavior patterns changed, either testier than normal, eating habits, listlessness, etc?

What type of conditions is your guy in? Substrate, temps, etc?

~L~

Yeah, actually I was just about to post a new message about odd behavior. We got him from a friend about two days ago, who's old garter snake had babies (they were going to let one of them go, so he gave it to us.) I don't know much about having snakes (we've had a few wild snakes, but this one isn't from hour area, though it's not too far north) so forgive me if I made a major gaff; we used our local dirt (it's quite sandy, very fine, light tan, dusty if stirred up [it's not dusty in his cage]) and some local pea gravel. His food (which he hasn't eaten yet) is guppies in a ceramic bowl. He's got a weird indentation near his head on his underbelly (about one tenth of the way down, it's about an inch long) and he's been grinding his head against the glass wall. I thought he might be trying to shed (he's very foggy/blue eyed) but he doesn't want the large rough rock we gave him. Any hints would be awesome. Thanks again

Oh, and real quick note, i don't know if this is normal or not, but the snake spends a long time (anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, maybe more, and he definately isn't hunting) with his head raised (so I assume he isn't resting) and without motion.

Thanks again

take him to the vet ASAP

Clicking noise could be a resperatory problem...........rubbing his head constantly could be mites........mites could also cause the resperatory problem.........check very closely for them........hope this helps.....chris