Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just curious. Are most ribbon/garter snakes in pet stores CB or WC? I don't wanna have to treat a 10 dollar snake if it's gonna have parasites and all the same as if I went and caught one myself.

I don't wanna have to treat a 10 dollar snake if it's gonna have parasites and all the same as if I went and caught one myself.

I'd venture a guess that many garter and ribbon snakes available through pet stores (i.e. not from a breeder) are WC.

You could go catch one yourself, but to do so legally may require a hunting or fishing license in your state, so those costs more or less cancel each other out ($10 in the pet store, or ~$10 for a license/permit, not factoring in deparasitizing on either).

However, the snakes for sale in the pet store may have been collected on a "commercial" scale, i.e. LOTS of snakes collected from a den site, kept in substandard conditions while in transit, etc. Buying from said source sends the message that there is a demand for such commercial-scale collecting, and could potentially encourage it. So, it could be argued that collecting your own, for personal enjoyment, is less of an impact on herp populations.

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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet

Yeah, I won't go catch and keep a garter/ribbon snake or any other WC snake since I have other CB snakes in my collection. I really don't want to bring any trouble into my collection(mites and other external and internal parasites). I had a CB redsided garter YEARS ago and before him I had plenty of WC garter snakes over the years.

I had one that was gravid and I didn't know it and had about 30 babies when I came down stairs. I took them all and let them go of course. I never really seen any type of mite on garter snakes around here in PA but you never know.I just haven't had a garter snake in years and these little guys use to be one of my favorite snake.My redsided was a very large garter at almost 3 1/2 feet long. He was pretty thick too!