Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I live in the Buffalo region and have a couple of baby garters that I've been keeping for about a month. They are feeding well on small earth worms and have shed. Could anyone tell me if they can be kept indoors over the winter without a hibernation period. I know hibernation is not the correct term but couldn't remember what you call it. Thanks for any help. I know some will say return them to the wild.

I've read that you don't really have to brumate your garters unless you want to breed them. My Canadian red-sided (who was probably wild caught before I bought her from a pet store) brumated last winter on her own without any prompting from me. She just stopped eating and coiled up under a rock shelf for about a month, so I stopped feeding her and dropped of her heat and lighting. I also have a yearling eastern that I caught when he was a neonate, he's been through a winter with no brumation and made it fine. I didn't try cooling him, so I don't know that if I did, he'd brumate successfully. If you do decide to brumate your little guys, make sure they're well fed for a good period beforehand. Good luck!

Zelda

Hello, the word you were looking for is brumation. Personally I wouldn't suggest brumating babies. In the wild many babies won't make it through the brumation process. Brumation is only necessary if your breeding them (and even then is sometimes unnecessary) and since they aren't large enough to breed it wouldn't be any advantage to it. Also not brumating them will allow them to get larger over the winter. As for keeping WC, I have no problem with it. I doubt there is a huge impact in your area from wild collecting 1 or 2 (although be prepared to have someone tell you to that you shouldn't keep them.) Maybe in future years breed them and offer them to local herpers so they don't have to go out and wild catch them (that's what I do.) Good luck, Scott.
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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

"In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws.
But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
—Martin Luther King Jr

This actually brings up something I've always wondered about. In most areas, snakes naturally brumate during the cold weather season. It's part of their natural annual cycle (in theory?), so could it create a problem if one does NOT brumate a WC snake, thereby depriving them of their natural "shut-down" period over the winter?

As I understand it, snakes do not _totally_ shut down for the winter, but in fact may awaken and emerge at just about any time when the weather turns warm. Even a several-day warm spell in January can bring some of them out for a little while (if it's warm enough). This may be the fundamental difference between brumation and hibernation, the latter (pertaining mainly to mammals) referring to a total shutdown over the winter - regardless of any intermediate warm spells. Am I right?

Need... glossary... Oldherper... lol
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MichaelB