Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I may get into Thamnophis. I've been thinking of snakes that interest me and can be set up in 3'lx2'dx2'h naturalistic vivarium. I'm also interested in garters from all the talk of how active and inquisitive they are, they seem like pretty cool little snakes. I happen to have a nice population of nice T. s. concinnus near my house and have found some very nice looking snakes over the years. If I happen to find anymore like the first one I see garters in my future.

Another thing appealing to me is the similarity I've noticed to my Drymarchon like little mini cribo's lol.
Here's another pic of a concinnus from the same area.


There is also a population of melanistic T.s.s. 6 hours from my place but I have yet to find any of them, this spring should change that.

Nate

Nate you are going to love Garters. I've got a pair of T.s.concinnus and they are the most entertaining snakes I have.

My Blackpine, Gopher and Black Tailed cribo are active but nothing compared with my garters.

Jeremy

T.e.vagrans is the melanistic garter around here. And I always interchange red-spoteed with red-sidded sorry for the confusion.
Nate

>>T.e.vagrans is the melanistic garter around here. And I always interchange red-spoteed with red-sidded sorry for the confusion.
>>Nate

That's ok, I see Oregon "red-sided" garters for sale here in Ohio at shows all the time. They're T.s.concinnus "Oregon red-spotteds".

I think you'll like garters. And I totally agree with your Drymarchon/cribo assessment. I know people who still think of garters as "trash snakes" who love their big drys, but their personality/temperment, habits, metabolism, etc. is -very- similar.

And garters are MUCH cheaper, and $$hit MUCH less! Much smaller enclosure size is a plus too!

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Lisa
Living Earth Environmental Education
@__/ __/ __ / __==< :>--

I've always liked the little guys and that's exactly why I want to keep a few of them. I've ran out of room for anymore large cages for all my snakes and have been looking for some small colubrids. I don't consider any snake to be a trash snake, except maybe Ball's lol.

Nate

Nate,
Garters are very cool indeed, just make sure if you plan to take a wild snake that it is legal in your area (quite frankly I personally wouldn't pass judgement either way, but don't want you getting in any undue trouble), but even if it is legal there are good reasons to aquire captive bred and born anyway and they are regularly available and very reasonably priced, but if you do decide to take a wild caught in, you will probably have better success with hatchlings and raising them up, than an adult, it's a very stressful change for an wild adult that is set in it's ways. Maybe you have already considered these things, and not I'm not trying to rain on anything or curb your interest, I've just crossed that bridge more than a few times over the years, sometimes with regrets.
Good luck and post picts if you do get some, and thanks for sharing the field pics, nice looking snakes for sure, keep them coming.
Jeff
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Jeff Benfer
1.0 cinnamon pastel Python regius
1.1 pastel Python regius
1.1 mojave Python regius
0.3 normal Python regius
1.3 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.2 double het albino and anerythristicThamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
2.3 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
0.2 het Christmas albino Thamnophis radix
1.1 double het cherry erythristic, albino Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 melanistic Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
2.0 66% het snow Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 triple heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 butter p.h. stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 carmel stripe p.h. amel Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 amelanistic p.h. carmel,stripe Pantherophis guttatus

Thanks Jeff,
Taking garters is not illegal in Oregon if its for your own collection, it is illegal to collect for sale. I'm well aware of the problems with bringing in WC animals and would prefer CBB. The thing that has me interested in picking up WC is the fact that I can collect the specimens I'm interested in. I have not seen yellow-headed concinsus available for sale from the locale I'm interested in.

Currently I keep Spilotes, Pseustes and Drymarchon and have fought long and hard to obtain CBB snakes. Granted If I lived in South America I would probably collect them.

I'll keep you guys posted if I find any Garters worthy of bringing into captivity.

Nate

Nate,
I hear ya man, we're on the same wavelength. I have collected a few red-sided in my local area too, which is perfectly legal, mainly for breeding stock, because I personally think they are some of the prettiest deepest reds anywere, but I really want that to be a bare minimum, for a lot of reasons, but one of the main reasons is I want to be able to enjoy continuing to see them in my own backyard.
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Jeff Benfer
1.0 cinnamon pastel Python regius
1.1 pastel Python regius
1.1 mojave Python regius
0.3 normal Python regius
1.3 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.2 double het albino and anerythristicThamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
2.3 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
0.2 het Christmas albino Thamnophis radix
1.1 double het cherry erythristic, albino Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 melanistic Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
2.0 66% het snow Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 triple heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 butter p.h. stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 carmel stripe p.h. amel Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 amelanistic p.h. carmel,stripe Pantherophis guttatus