Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It's going to be busy around our house for a while with this many mouths to feed - nine eastern blacknecks cb from Austin-area parents (along with 16 red-sided garters born last week). Luckily there is a very robust cricket frog population nearby, but I'll get them onto pinkies after a bit. Anyone else have much success getting eastern blacknecks to take feeder fish? When I breed these guys, only a few babies take fish. In the field, they're dedicated amphibian eaters. (Though they do fine on mice once they're switched.)

Michael Smith
Link

Hey Michael,

Congrats on your babies! I have all my occelatus babies on feeder fish. Fish is the easiest food item to feed where I live as I buy a large quantity from a local fish supplier. Good luck with your group.

Scott

Hi Scott,

Glad you're able to get all of them on fish. I will try again with this litter, but am prepared to start them on frogs and then make the switch to pinkie parts. These guys are fairly robust, so pinkie parts should be feasible after only a few meals.

Michael

How large/stout are these eastern blacknecks as adults? I find it interesting how some species of garter are born large and robust like the wandering garters, and now from what I've just learned, these Eastern Blacknecks. Do the species that tend to have the larger babies end up being surpassed in the longrun by other species of Garter, such as Red-Sided Garters (parietalis), Plains Garters, or even some of the Easterns (S.Sirtalis) Thanks in advance.

Steve

Eastern blacknecks are not necessarily bigger as adults than some of the others - average lengths are 16-20 inches with a record of 43 inches (these numbers come from Werler & Dixon as well as Tennant & Bartlett, though the average lengths seem a little small to me). I have an article from 2001 archived at the DFW Herp Society website covering this species. See www.dfwherp.org in the section for Cross Timbers Herpetologist, Herp of the Month.

Neonate size may have more to do with prey preferences than size of adults. Litter size may be correspondingly smaller with garters that have big babies.

Michael
DFW Herp Society

Thanks Michael for your imput. I read your article and it was loaded with excellent info. Eastern Blacknecks are beautiful Garters, and I do plan in the future to expand into a few more species.

Steve

"Eastern blacknecks are not necessarily bigger as adults than some of the others - average lengths are 16-20 inches with a record of 43 inches (these numbers come from Werler & Dixon as well as Tennant & Bartlett, though the average lengths seem a little small to me). I have an article from 2001 archived at the DFW Herp Society website covering this species. See www.dfwherp.org in the section for Cross Timbers Herpetologist, Herp of the Month.

Neonate size may have more to do with prey preferences than size of adults. Litter size may be correspondingly smaller with garters that have big babies."

Michael

do people sell them in the classififeds, because ive never seent hem there. where do you guys get yours? they are such great looking snakes, thanks, nick.
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1.1 Western redback chuckwallas(philbert & unnamed)
5 green sunfish
Striped raphale catfish
Common Plecaustomouse
3 coyfish
0.1.1-sandiego gopher snakes
1.3-coturnix quail
0.1-cockatiel( R.I.P)ironic she was named casper...
1.1(fixed) cats-eddie/buzz
Where the heck would a cali. kingsnake run off to?!?!?!

I had a female that I collected years ago on Juno road that I gave to a friend. She had 16 babies (that was before folks were getting hundreds of dollars for them). He made the mistake of keeping them all together and feeding them chopped amphiuma. The babies crawled through the chopped salamander and before he realized what was happening, the mother ate all but 5 of the babies. They sure liked that amphiuma, though. A 3 foot salamander would go a long way and would be good to scent from.....just make sure everyone was housed separately.
Jim

Occasionally they show up in the classifieds, either on Kingsnake or Fauna. There still aren't a large number of people working with them, apparently. Mine were bought as babies; I live in north TX outside their range, but they turn up fairly commonly in the Austin area. I've herped the Texas hill country and only found a few (which I did not collect).

As it happens, I am offering the babies for sale (contact me privately) or you could buy from Scott Felzer.

Michael Smith