Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am not a fan of purchasing snakes at a pet store. (In fact I dont think I purchased one from a pet store in almost 20 yrs.) And most pet stores in the tri state area have the same common species of snakes for sale all the time. Not to mention they are over priced. (Ex. $100 albino cornsnake). Last Saturday I went into a local pet store for some pinkies, and found 1.1 cb baby European Grass snakes (Natrix natrix). The store was calling them European Garter snakes. They were $35 each. I snatched them right up. What cool little snakes. Why are there not more around? I never even see them at reptile shows.

No money in them. This isn't necessarily bad. People try to subsidize their hobby with sales of babies. Normal looking baby snakes of species that have high dollar morph potential are everywhere and super cheap. So people looking for a pet snake or two get those.

An animal like you are describing doesn't fit into the morph focus of the hobby and will never be a common pet. I would encourage you to continue to work with the oddballs of the hobby. It's pretty fun.

Doug T

I understand. However I dissagree. I am not a morph guy. I am mostly a crotalid keeper. (no one wants them as pets)LOL. But the spoecies I work with are not common and fetch a pretty penny. I also started working with Dominican red mountian boas. Not common but real cool. They change colors all the time. Another oddball I work with people ask me about are my cape file snakes. (Not the aquaic ones). Look at the price of local specific garters, ie.. California redsides, and eastern flames. Not common as pets but always sell, and not for cheap. But its not about the money its about odd cool snakes you dont see to much. They have a diffrent value. They are not always available or tough to keep in captivity. PRICELESS

If you don't think there aren't more of them because they aren't profitable, why do YOU think there aren't more.

Same reason there are not too many European vipers and European ratsnakes around. We do not import that many animals from European breeders. That is why the rat snakes and vipers from europe cost so much here and are real cheap at the Ham Show. I dont believe anything wild comes out of europ.

I'd love to find Natrix natrix here! Never had any luck.
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Natrix natrix isn't CITES listed. Unless there's some european laws I don't know about, getting them imported into the US is entirely legal. Find a european breeder or willing to export them and have them shipped to you. Use a broker to make sure it's done correctly and you're set.

I've done this with a few species I wanted. It's no big deal.

Then the only answer to why there isn't more of them around is because... You didn't want to do the work to get them.

DT

>>I am not a fan of purchasing snakes at a pet store. (In fact I dont think I purchased one from a pet store in almost 20 yrs.) And most pet stores in the tri state area have the same common species of snakes for sale all the time. Not to mention they are over priced. (Ex. $100 albino cornsnake). Last Saturday I went into a local pet store for some pinkies, and found 1.1 cb baby European Grass snakes (Natrix natrix). The store was calling them European Garter snakes. They were $35 each. I snatched them right up. What cool little snakes. Why are there not more around? I never even see them at reptile shows.

Becouse they are a protected animal.
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until next time make mine slither.herb
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