Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anybody here feed their neonate garters worms until they are big enough for pinkies?

I've got...

1.0 05' Flame Eastern Garter
1.1 05' Het Albino, Possible Het Melanistic and Snow Eastern Garters
1.1 05' Erythristic Eastern Garter Snakes

The Flame and the Het Albinos eat 1-2 worms every 2-3 days. No calcium supplement or anything on the worms, though it probably wouldn't be a bad idea. The Flame is kind of picky about eating this often, so I probably won't be able to get him to sexual maturity by next year.

The Erythristic male gets 1-2 worms every 1-3 days, sometimes I give him a worm a day, but that's only when the worms are really small and I've only done it once or twice so far. The Erythristic female gets usually 1 worm, every 3-4 days, sometimes I give her 2. She gets less food, less often than everyone else because she had a little regurge problem back when I got her.

Scott or Tom, you two both have the Schuett line Eastern Garters, how big are the typical sexually mature males-females?

Mike
Michael's Place

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

I very rarely ever feed any of my garters worms.Fish is better for them when they are growing.The faster you can get them on pinky parts the better.Right now I am feeding my new snakes small fish meals just about every day.The last couple of years I was feeding twice a week.This year I am trying something new.As soon as I get them on whole pinks I will feed them twice a week like I did with my other garters.My new hets are from felzer.I would say that your female would have to be 24-26 inches to breed.Male about 18.

I agree with Tom on all counts. Worms have minimal nutritional value and they will grow the slowest on a worm diet. Try tearing up pinkies and place in with the worms. If they take this, the next meal try just the pinky parts by themselves. This is how I do it with fish. I have had all my holdbacks on unscented mice for about a month now. A few are even close to taking whole pinkies. As you know once they get onto mice parts, they take off in size.

Scott

I usually shy away from feeding them pinky parts, just because pinky parts are so tiny, and it just doesn't seem worth it. Most of the time I just feed them worms until they are big enough for whole pinkies and the switch is usually very easy.

But I guess I'll have to try the pinky parts...

Mike
Michael's Place

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

>>Does anybody here feed their neonate garters worms until they are big enough for pinkies?
>>

Yes I feed my neonate wandering garters worms until they are
ready for pinkies. However wandering garters are often on whole pinkies
after a month. Not all worms are created equally however.
Some are far more nutritious than others depending on the soil.
My worms come from soil that I add a lot of organic material to such as oak leaves and
oak chippings. I have also raised some sirtalis on worms and
fish and they grew much better on worms than they did rosy reds and
guppies. I believe that you are far less likely to have problems
with thiamin deficiency when you feed worms vs. fish as well since
worms don't have thiaminase.

Some western garters such as the northwestern
garters eat only worms and slugs their whole lives.
I believe some eastern garters such as the shortheaded garters
subsist mostly on worms as well.

Yep I've kept hundreds of shorthead garter snakes and never had one seem interested in anything other than worms.

Thiamese is one of the main reasons I don't use fish as garter snake food. As well as the majority of the pet stores in my area do not stock rosy reds because it's too hot for them to be shipped.

Mike
Michael's Place

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