Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Went to one of my spots I barely go to. It's basically a lake, and then a stream on the side of it.

They drained the lake. I'm dying to know what happened to the 30 plus turtles that were in there.

I went to this area to try and find some small Queen Snakes as feeders. Basically in this area all you find are Northern Water Snakes and Queen Snakes.

After about 10 minutes of looking, found 1 dusky salamander. Hung onto it as use of feeder.
Then I start lifting tarp around the edge of the stream, usually the only way to find snakes these days in that spot. After about another 10 minutes I found a 14" Northern Water Snake. The next thing I encountered was a 23" female(either gravid or recently eaten) Eastern garter Snake, a new one for me in this area. After she bit me a few times I decided to let her go on her way lol.

All in all.... found...

5 Northern Water Snakes, 3 12"-16", 2 that were about 2 1/2' to 3'

3 Queen Snakes, all about 15"-20", a.k.a. Too big to use as feeders

1 Eastern Garter Snake, about 2' long, very angry

1 Dusky Salamander

1 American Toad

Not a bad day, not good, but not bad lol.

Mike
Michael's Place

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Michael's Place has updated, better caresheets
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

You feed your herps other herps?
Very lame if you ask me.

Snakes eat snakes in the wild
Snakes eat lizards in the wild
Snakes eat frogs in the wild
Snakes eat salamanders in the wild

Just like they eat rodents in captivity.... they are all prey items, they will all be eaten by something at one point or another in their lives, why should their captive lives be any different?

I happen to have snakes that only eat snakes, that only eat lizards, that only eat frogs, so feeding herps to herps is a must. I don't care, I choose to keep snake species that have a limited diet, and I'm willing to throw a frog in with a rear fanged snake and watch it suffer a painful death.

j/p...

My hunt to the area was to find queen snakes for a regal ringneck snake I have. Regals will only eat snakes and lizards, and snakes are easier for me to obtain. I also wanted queen snakes because they are smooth scaled, and the regal will only take f/t smooth scaled or live keeled scaled.

Mike

Prey is prey.... no matter the size, shape, form or scales.
Michael's Place

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Michael's Place has updated, better caresheets
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

You posted on a forum so im going to give you my opinion regardless if you like it or not.

Buying feeders is one things but your going out "field herping" to take animals from there habitat to feed them to your snakes.Its wrong to take any animal out of the wild, expecially if your going to feed it to something to save a few bucks.

Like I said very lame.

I take snakes out of the wild all the time to use them as feeders. I'm not going to stop because you think it's wrong. It's not hurting the population of snakes, so it doesn't matter. I'm not using endangered or threatened species as feeders, so it doesn't matter.

I'm not going to spend $$ on a CB feeder when I can catch them.

Mike
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Michael's Place has updated, better caresheets
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

Here in NY, Queen Snakes are protected, being listed as an endangered species(due to their limited range).

Are they really that common in Western PA?

Cheers
Matt
www.matabuey.com

I didn't find this area until probably 8 years ago, and at that time when I started herping there, I found loads of babies.

After construction and such(for some reason they are seriously doing construction ON the stream)the queens have become more rare. But I have seen literally hundreds of hundreds of them since I found the area.

Mike
Michael's Place

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Michael's Place has updated, better caresheets
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake

Take as many as are legally allowed. The limits are provided to maintain a substainable population. Otherwise, since you are just catching them to save money, then you need to get a commerial collecting permit. Probably cheaper to buy feeder lizards. That is, if you are abiding by your state's legal bag limits.

The legal limit in Pa is 2 of any species. He knows that but many of his posts indicate that he does not observe the law.
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Randy
Firehouse Herps