Growth rate and maximum size?

[SkinnyPete]

I am posting this because I am very interested in finding this out!
I have noticed when I search that there are not many threads about growth rates and "adult" sizes of the different Garters. I thought, this would be a good way to start off here is to ask:

How fast does your snake grow, and what is the generally accepted "adult" size of that subspecies?

Mine is a Valley Garter (T.s. fitchi) and I am terribly curious of how fast she will grow and how big she can possibly get!
I am sure there are others that would love to know about the other sub-species!

Thanks ahead of time! :)
Pete

[i_heart_sneakie_snakes]

My girls are the longest of all the snakes I own. But not as big as my first snake got. She was a Concinnus. I haven't measured them but I'd guess they are 2 feet 4 inches or so. I'll measure them and be back later with the results.

[paulh]

I have generally not tried to measure a garter because I am afraid of injuring them. That goes double for newborns, and it is newborn length that I am particularly interested in. Several years ago, I downloaded and tried the Snake Measurer program, but it did not work for me. Now it works over the web, so I will have to try it out.
Serpwidgets - Snake Measurer (http://serpwidgets.com/main/measure)

The two Peterson field guides on USA herps have a lot of information on adult sizes.

[RedSidedSPR]

The site above works quite well.

[GarField000]

It al depends on the species. I have a eques scotti who's 120 cm and 926 gram.
I have a marcianus who's very short (not even a meter) but fat ....

[guidofatherof5]

926 grams. Post some photos please. WOW.:eek:

[SkinnyPete]

926g!? That's a man sized Garter!!! I would love to see pics too!!!!! :)

[GarField000]

This is a picture that is somewhere on this forum.
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9429/dsc06889z.jpg

And this is me holding her.

http://imageshack.us/a/img97/8760/handbm02.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img38/8966/handbm01.jpg

[guidofatherof5]

'Man, woman and child did that put them in the aisles" :D
Now that's a garter snake.
Thanks.

[EasternGirl]

Holy cow! That is a garter! Awesome. To answer the question above...I have found that easterns around here get to be about 3 feet long...the females anyway. I have seen some a little bigger. I have heard they can get up to four feet. My big girl is 3 feet...but definitely not as thick around as the "man snake" above. My big radix girl is almost as long as my eastern girl...and a little thicker. My radix boy and eastern boy are about 2 1/2 feet long and much smaller in diameter than the girls. All of my other species are young, so I have no idea how big they will get. But my concinnus girl is growing fast...I have an idea she will be big.

[ProXimuS]

:eek:Woa:eek: She's huge! And beautiful:) Her size/girth almost reminds me of a water snake.

[Invisible Snake]

She is HUGE! I can see the Syfy network making a scary movie about her lol.

(For non-Americans, the Syfy network is a television station dedicated to the genre of sci-fi and horror.)

[GarField000]

Hahaha. Thx all. Yeah she's very big and very kind. She's my pride :).

But about growth ..... I had 2 concinnus females ... one was around 100 cm and very big. Her sister was smaller and shorter. It was a very large difference. The babies from both where also different in size. From the 5 females that where born from the big female even they where different in size. One is VERY big for it's age, but her sisters stay much smaller.
If you look at the picture .. she's 4 months old now, and the parietalis is from april 2011.

http://imageshack.us/a/img715/7048/afterdinner04.jpg.

What I want to say is that garters, even the same species grow very different in size.

[chris-uk]

What I want to say is that garters, even the same species grow very different in size.

Agreed.

We have a checkered from PinJohn born August last year, and our friends' have one from the same litter. Our Eskerina is quite a lot smaller than Lightning, but Lightning was the biggest of the litter and has always stayed ahead (even when she went on a controlled diet because she'd eat everyone's share of the food when they were fed together). Last time we compared weights Lightning was 20-25% heavier than Esk, and Esk wasn't the smallest in the litter.

[SkinnyPete]

WOW, what an awesome bunch of replies!
AND some AMAZING snakes! Thanks everyone! I love seeing the size differences!