First successful litter of babies

[KephrenJorgensen]

Hi, My name is Kephren. I'm a 17 year old male from Vancouver Island. I recentely obtained a melanistic T. ordinoides female. She was gravid when I got her. She had 9 offspring on august 1st. I have them in a 10 gal with paper towel for substrate, a water dish, paper towel tubes, moss, and shredded paper towel. I have not tried to feed them yet as I have not been into town, though I a m picking up pinkies and fish tomorrow. Today is august 3rd. I would appreciate any advice for a first time "breeder" like myself :P I will post pictures when a camera finds its way to me.

[thamneil]

Congratulations! Husbandry sounds to be spot on. Just make sure they always have somewhere cool and moist to go.

Garters in general are easiest to start on either worms or feeder fish. Im guessing that ordinoides should have a preference for worms or even slugs if possible. There are quite a few members who have plenty of first hand experience with ordinoides, im sure that a few of them will chime in.

Nice to see that you are in Canada! If you plan on rehoming any of the little guys, let me know. I would welcome a couple of ordinoides in the snake room. By the way, welcome to the forum!

[KephrenJorgensen]

I will be looking for new homes for some. I will keep 1 pair most likely, depending on how ma ny homes a re found and how many survive my first run at rasing them. I seem to be better with babies and juveniles of all species though, so luck should be on my side. I have some questions too. What par ts of the pinkies are the safest to feed to the young? I dont watto fed them a ny thing that could harm their developing digestive tracts. I dont think I a m going to use fish, the feeder fish available here are wha t I believe killed my last pair of ordinoides, who were extremely red. I had planned on breeding the male with my melanistic female, in hopes of producing solid black color with red stripes. I don't have access to a trout farm, and I can't trust any salmon from the BC farms, or the grocery stores. Worms are hard to acquire this season, and I've heard that pinkies can induce healthier growth; I've also heard that growth enhanced by pinkies can cause wea k hearts. Should I avoid feeding the babies certa in parts of the pinkies?

[kibakiba]

Variety is the best in their diets, pinkies, earth worms or night crawlers and safe fish.

[KephrenJorgensen]

I plan to feed them a variety, but getting them to eat in the first place is my concern right now, and before I mentioned that there are no safe fish in my area.

[kibakiba]

No grocery stores carry anything at all? Have a pet shop that carries silversides?

[mikem]

Congratulations! Do you have any pics of momma and/or the babies? Try to offer them worms until you find some fish and pinks. Good luck!

[KephrenJorgensen]

It is 32 degrees here on avera ge, worms are ridiculously hard to find. No pet stores here carry any overly exotic animals, well no big na me petstores. Silversides have not been in any pet store I've ever been too. The BC fish hatcheries are going through troubles right now with infected fish, so I don't want to use any unsafe salmon. Tilapia doesn't exist where I live :P I a m going to start with some guppies and/rosy red minnows to see how they take to those. Does any one know any thing about rosy red minnowsÉ If not, I will have to look for a fishing store with nightcrawlers this out of season. With the pinkies, they are 5.49 for a frozen 4 pack. Is this a deal of some sort, or would I be losing money . . . I am also still worried that I might feed the babies portions of pinkies that may be harmful, a s I ha ve never dealt with pinkies before.

[KephrenJorgensen]

also, every piece of fish in my grocery store is cha lk full of sodium tripolyphosphate, which I`ve heard is a killer.

[guidofatherof5]

If guppies are available don't use rosy minnows.
That pinky price seen normal for pet shops. Seen them for more and less money.
Here is a link to the care sheet which has a list of safe and unsafe fish. It also talks about thiaminase which rosey minnows have.
Garter Snake Forum - Garter Caresheet (http://www.thamnophis.com/index.php?page=caresheet)

[thamneil]

You can't find any slugs? Last time I was in B.C. There were slugs everywhere. I think they would probably be most likely to take slugs. Worms are good to. Do you have any bait shops near you? Pick up a pack of good old nightcrawlers. I wouldn't bother with fish and I can almost guarantee you that they wont touch pinkies initially. Get them feeding reliably on something and then start to incorporate the pinks. Any part should be safe to use.

I wish you good luck in raising the little fellows. What kind of colours did you get? Post some pictures if you get a chance. I would love to see them!

[KephrenJorgensen]

would unsalted, canned light salmon or tuna be safe enough? The link at the bottom of the safe/unsafe fish section in the caresheet suggest they are fairly safe. Im pretty sure that I can acquire alaskan salmon canned. This would be very easy for thebabies to consume and would smell pretty good. They don't have feeder guppies unfortuna tely, just fancy ones. The petstores changed their hours too. Until I can get worms and pinkies, I have no way to feed the babies, which are very lively today by the way. again, which parts of the pinkies should I avoid feeding to the babies?

[guidofatherof5]

No, it is processed for human consumption. I would not recommend it.

[KephrenJorgensen]

Okay, thank you. I don't know if any bait shops have nightcrawlers this season. I will check though. Slugs are enthusiastically by every Garter I've had, but small ones are much less common, and I don't know if anyone's tried to cut up slugs, but it is very difficult. I will definitely get to the park near by and find some slugs and see what I can do with a razor blade.

[KephrenJorgensen]

The colors I got are mostly normal or reduced, since the mother was a wild caught melanistic. The father was most likely a normal ordinoides. One is lacking the middle stripe. Im almost positive one has no stripes. Two look like normals, but their entire color scheme so far is melanized, so take an ordinoides and make it mostly black and grey. Most of them have grey or tan stripes, but it looks like one has a reddish orange middle, and bluish gray side stripes. One snake is entirely normal looking. I will post pictures of momma and the babies as soon as I locate my camera, it disappears every time I use it to take pictues of animals.

[chris-uk]

again, which parts of the pinkies should I avoid feeding to the babies?

If you have pinkies and the other options aren't available at the moment, the pinkies are worth a try. There's not any parts that you should avoid feeding them, it is more a case of cutting to bite size pieces. Chop the pinky when it is frozen, I tend to take the legs and tail off for little snakes, then it's a case of removing the head and cutting that up, and the body. When I see the internal organs I usually separate the liver (I want to make sure it's eaten as it's excellent nutrition).
The other thing to look out for if you're cutting through the pinky is that you don't leave loops of skin, I once had one where the top of loop was being swallowed and the lower part of the loop was under the lower jaw making it impossible to swallow (I cut the loop to free it up, but I have a pair of dissection scissors to hand which a sharp and very precise).

[KephrenJorgensen]

I found some nightcrawlers at a gas station. Though I dont plan to feed the snakes this late. They have a ton of frozen herring and anchovies, which of these two would be best, if either are worth it fort he variety?

[Invisible Snake]

I found some nightcrawlers at a gas station. Though I dont plan to feed the snakes this late. They have a ton of frozen herring and anchovies, which of these two would be best, if either are worth it fort he variety?

Herring (Leucichthys artedi areturus) are on the forums care sheet of safe fish.

Anchovies (Engraulis mordax) I found on another forum to contain thiaminase and are unsafe to feed to garters.

[zooplan]

Cogratulation, I remember the first litter was a big moment in my live
and big trouble caring for the little scrubs:D
Now I feed baby snakes each two to four days, knowing that they´re able to survive several weeks
and catch up all missed meals when strating to feed regulary.

[KephrenJorgensen]

Ive got bad, good, and better news. I'll start with the bad. The babies have 0 interest in worm bits. The good news, the babies ate some salmon I found in my freezer. The salmon came with a code I could use to find out who caught it, when, how, and where. It is wild salmon from just south of the alaskan,bc border. I only observed 6 eat, broke up two food fights. The two snakes with the basic brown colour of ordinoides didnt eat while I was around. It is easy enough to tell who`s eaten upon observation though. Hopefully they`ll be plump when I get home. The better news is that I found frozen Herring caught in Canada. My hope is that the snakes will take to these as they did with the salmon. I still dont trust BC`s fishing industry right now, primarily because of all the salmon they killed off and recalled. So far so good though. The babies are lively today. I come in the room, and they go from one end of the tank to the other in a split second. Momma snake, who I`ve decided to now call Mephista, due to her melanism and rainbow colour( In many angles of light, she reflects blue, purple and yellow) eats voraciously. My camera went missing, so I will have to use a phone camera for pics. I will do the best I can. I should have pics posted later this evening.

[kibakiba]

Keep offering, northwesterns, and babies in general can be a little hard to get eating. I would offer them food at least every 2 days, for the ones that haven't eaten yet. Mine took 15 days to eat. They were scared of worm bits at first... They'd rear their heads up like little cobras and then hide under the logs with their tails over their heads! It was adorable, yet frustrating! :D

[thamneil]

Congrats on them eating salmon! Wasnt quite expecting that it would happen that way. We still need pictures! :)

[guidofatherof5]

Not sure if it's been suggested or not but Northwesterns (T.ordinoides) love slugs. Larger slugs can be cut-up and the pieces given to the babies.
My Northwesterns love the treat of slugs when they are available. This year it's been too hot and dry.

[kibakiba]

The slugs should also be spotted if possible. I think I've said that... I don't remember... :D Brown slugs secrete slime that can easily choke the snakes. If they're still tiny and pale it's not nearly as bad... I always keep a few q tips and a small syringe handy. I only had to use the q tips once, on Ember... I like keeping the syringe handy just in case. Water helps unstick slug glue sometimes. Just have to be careful since the snakes are a bit delicate.

[KephrenJorgensen]

Where I live slugs are a pest. They are everywhere at all times, but they are huge. Most slugs are over 4 inches and when touched just become a ball of slime. I tried to cut a slug yesterday, it was impossible. My adult ordinoides, elegans vagrans, and sirtalis pickeringii go beserk for slugs, but they can never swallow them. Unless I find the babies in the spring and fall. Today will be a mixture of frozen herring and worm bits. Im going to mix it all up in a bowl with some calcium and multivitamin powder (I use the for its vitamin d content) and pratically mush it into bits of eachother.

[guidofatherof5]

Do you know which herring you are feeding? Just wondering as herring is on both the safe and unsafe fish list.