Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just took in a young garter snake we found in the yard. Im an experienced herper but never kept garters, only kings, milk, corns and stuff like that. Its about 6 inches and actually very nice looking for a common garter. Got a quick question about feeding. Is it common to start these off on guppies and tuffies? What else can I try to get it eating in captivity? If it doesnt start in a week or so, I'll release it.

I would start on guppies and small gold fish. I would'nt get into that fancy stuff like, crickets and worms, and stuff. Stick with Guppies and if its big enough small goldfish. As it grows go up in size fo the fish into big goldfish. Eventually when it's big enough you might want to try feeding small frozen pinkies. If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me. By the way, what kind of Garter is it? Do you have any pics available?

I caught one a few weeks ago, about 7 or 8 inches long. It is eating earthwoms and fish fillet. For me, worms are easier to get than fish from a petstore - just look in the garden and you'll find them! At first, my snake wouldn't eat the fish so I made some sort of mushy paste by squishing fish and worms together. When my snake gets bigger I will try pinkie mice.
Hope this helps.

I've got 3 garters that were wc as babies. I started them all out on feeder guppies / mosquito fish (I've read that feeding goldfish exclusively leads to vitamin deficiencies). What kind of garter do you have? At 8" it could handle day old pinkies if it's "into them".

I have found that the western terrestials I have are much more willing to take rodents. My western terrestrial from Humbolt, CA needed his first pinki scented / rubbed on a treefrog, but took his second without scenting. My western terrestrial from Santa Barbara Co. Ca just wanted his brained and I didn't need to scent at all; he was only about 7" when he took his first pinki.

My T. sirtalis from Santa Barbara Co. has probably eaten over 10 pinkis now, but still refuses to eat them unless they are scented. I also had to wait until he was about a foot and a half before he'd even consider going through the trouble of eating even a scented pinki. Luckily he loves fish.

If you do decide to try pinkis, since he is small you'll want to pre-kill them since he'd probably have a lot of trouble overwhelming a live one.

-Alice

Depending on where you live, keeping native herps may be illegal (as crazy as that sounds for a garter you found in your yard!). www.mcmartinville.com/chris/reptiles/trips/equip.htm to check your state's regs, buy a license if necessary, then let your snake go in your yard and recapture it, to make it legal.
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet