What are your thoughts on housing and feeding neonates?

[Magnarock the 2nd]

When you have newborns, say in a sterilite with moist sphagnum moss, how many do you feel comftorable co-habbing? Do you feed them communaly in the enclosure? Or do you take out each one individually to feed in a seperate container? Or do you believe in housing them individually? I think moist sphagnum moss would be the ideal substrate for baby garters. What do you believe in or have experience doing?.:confused:;)

[snake man]

I don't have an experience but I would say that a litter can be together in one enclosure for a few weeks or until they get a little bigger and feeding can be done all together just make sure you watch them closely during it. Any moist substrate should do.

[guidofatherof5]

I group feed but others separate. I would be worried about a constant wet/damp living area but it should keep the little scrubs hydrated.

[Greg'sGarters]

For baby garters, what I do is that I'll split up the litter into groups of 1 dozen per 10g. I take a short rubbermaid, melt a hole in the side, and fill that with moist, borderline wet, sphagnum moss. I place this on the warm end of the cage. It allows garters to stay hydrated when they need to, without keeping their whole enclosure damp. Garters need to be able to have access to a wet area as well as a dry area ESPECIALLY when they are babies. Plus, that box also allows me to use as a base for hiding places. As for feeding, I'm going to try something new this year, I'm going to buy a blender and mix up worms, pinkies, tilapia, and some chicken heart and make a chunky paste with that with that. I might add some calcium & multi-v powder to add some extra nutrients. I'll put that on a dish and place that in their cage. If you would like to feed more solid food items (as I will twice a week) I'd feed them separately. Anyone think this is a good idea? It's an easy way to feed the babies, while getting them used to a wide variety of foods when young.

[guidofatherof5]

I don't think the blender idea is going to workout the way you think it is.

[Greg'sGarters]

Oh. Would a dicer be better or just stick to earthworm bits?

[d_virginiana]

I don't think I'd like the idea of feeding paste... Sounds like a food fight waiting to happen, especially in groups, cause there's no way one could grab a chunk and go. They'd be covered in the food-goo (for lack of a better word...) and all congregating in the same place instead of grabbing some then backing off to eat it.

[Greg'sGarters]

Ok, sounds fair. I will probably just end up sticking earthworm bits on a dish and putting that in there, feeding them guppies, separately, twice a week - just so that I can know for sure that ALL of them are eating.

[thamneil]

Paste is bad. You're asking for dirty, nasty babies wanting to eat each other.

As for the setup, I don't know if I would go for sphagnum substrate. I like to house my babies on paper towel for the first while, until they are eating well. I find that it is harder to feed a sometimes unwilling animal on a loose substrate. Everything sticks to the food items and complicates feeding. That being said, a moist area is always beneficial. Perhaps throw some damp sphagnum in a deli cup and place that within the enclosure.

I tend to house the entire litter together in a suitably sized terrarium. I like the idea of keeping groups together and don't often have to separate them. At the end of the day, do what works for you.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Greg, now I am genuinely curious... What is the most babies you have ever had at one time and how long did you maintain them for?

[chris-uk]

One of the forum members had a useful method for keeping and sorting litters. They kept a litter together and fed communally, but after some period started moving non-eaters to a separate container so that they could be given more attention.

For neonates I'd favour a plain substrate, paper towels, just to keep a better view of everything. But I've only had one baby born, and the other babies I've had have been at least 5 weeks old.

[gregmonsta]

I am happy with my experiences from my first litter. Paper towel for substrate with a normal sized waterbowl (to scale with what I do with the adults). Kept in small groups of 4-5 in tubbed set-ups (I use old old school conticos for housing the little ones). Fed in groups with small food chunks until well established and then tweezer fed larger items (still in their group enclosures). Of course, the groups gradually got smaller :D.

Ps - forgot to say - the one non-feeder was separated and eventually brumated to kick-start feeding.

[Stefan-A]

Solo housing, paper towel substrate, two paper towel roll hides, a plastic cup cut down to suitable height as a water bowl, a small food container with moist moss or paper towels for a temporary humid hide, feeding in situ.

Moss is a bad substrate. Keeping it clean is difficult.


I house them in these. I normally put them up for sale when they start to outgrow the second from the top.


http://koti.mbnet.fi/thamnoph/photos/snakes2013/enclosures/tubby.jpg

The sizes are 3, 9, 13 and 18 liters (give or take).

[Selkielass]

Groups of 6-8 housed together in small aquarium.
paper towel substrate, changed nearly every day.
Damp sphagnum moss in a plastic container hide, dry hide over paper towel..
Shallow water dish.
Food chopped to around the size of their heads.
After a week or two it becomes obvious who isn't eating by size.
Runts get along fine together so long as abundant food is available for grab n runs.
Tiny garden worms kept wet stay appealing the longest.

[Greg'sGarters]

Just to inform everyone, when I said paste. I said it out of lack for a better word. I meant a dish full of bits of each of those. NOT an actual paste, like sloppy. I don't even know if garters could eat an actual paste. Just to clear the air on that one.

[MasSalvaje]

I am happy with my experiences from my first litter. Paper towel for substrate with a normal sized waterbowl (to scale with what I do with the adults). Kept in small groups of 4-5 in tubbed set-ups (I use old old school conticos for housing the little ones). Fed in groups with small food chunks until well established and then tweezer fed larger items (still in their group enclosures). Of course, the groups gradually got smaller :D.

Ps - forgot to say - the one non-feeder was separated and eventually brumated to kick-start feeding.

Same here Greg, I follow a very similar routine and have been pleased with the results. I have not breed on a large scale by any means but I have had the best luck with paper towels and a large water bowl with a hide and the occasional misting. I ran into some problems when I tried to keep things moist. It was probably just me but I usually ended up making things too wet which led to a new set of problems.

My protocol for the couple vagrans litters I have dealt with has been slightly different that the one above. I am much more cautious about groupings with the vagrans than I am with other species.

-Thomas

[Steveo]

I think a lot of the scub management techniques are dictated by number and size of litters and available resources.

I feed mine individually so I can go about my day and come back an hour later without any worries... but I have 6 garters and 6 tupperware containers, so it's easy. A few years from now when I have 50+ to look after, I might do supervised group meals. I could probably get one of those baby racks that hold like 60 at one time, but I don't know that it would be worth it. Garter scrubs are so small that I'd still worry about them escaping.

[Magnarock the 2nd]

Im not familiar with the term "scrubs". Its a baby garter?definition?:confused:

[CrazyHedgehog]

tiny little baby garter snakes = scrubs

[Magnarock the 2nd]

Do any of you use NEWSPAPER over paper towels for a community?

[chris-uk]

Im not familiar with the term "scrubs". Its a baby garter?definition?:confused:

I think "scrub" is a colloquialism that is widely used on this forum. Doesn't Steve take some credit for originating the term?

[chris-uk]

Do any of you use NEWSPAPER over paper towels for a community?

I've never used newspaper, and it's not a substrate I'd look to use. I remember doing my paper round as a kid and finishing it every day with my hands covered in newsprint.

[Steveo]

Do any of you use NEWSPAPER over paper towels for a community?

I'll use it for a wild-caught snake that I'm just observing for a couple days but, other than that, no. It doesn't absorb liquid very well and it does nothing for the odor. I buy a large bag of Carefresh every other month and IMO it pays for itself with the time I save in not changing newspaper every 2 or 3 days.

[thamneil]

Newspaper can be used in the same respects as paper owl. A bit of an eyesore and not as thick and absorbent though.

[d_virginiana]

I keep all of mine on newspaper. It needs to be cleaned more often than other substrates and looks a bit 'bleh'. But IMO it's the best to keep dust down, and they don't seem to care as long as they have plenty of fake plants to burrow under. I started using it because my female has always had a mouth that doesn't align 100% making her prone to infections if dust or anything gets stuck in it, my baby had a mouth infection that still causes his mouth to puff out a bit and collect dust, and my very old male is blind so I don't want to risk anything like carefresh that he might accidentally pick up and eat if food rubbed across it.
Mainly, if you live near a Food Lion or WalMart, newspaper is free :rolleyes:

[Kantar]

Do any of you use NEWSPAPER over paper towels for a community?

I work in the printing industry and often printers will use a lot of ammonia in their inks to thin it out

[d_virginiana]

I work in the printing industry and often printers will use a lot of ammonia in their inks to thin it out

If anything is in a tank with a garter longer than a couple hours, it ends up infused in ammonia anyway... Especially if it's something you don't want to take out and clean. Just sayin' :p

[Spankenstyne]

I keep my babies together for the first 4-5 months and then start separating based on sex (if I still have any left at that point). I find group feeding helps trigger the feeding response in the shy/slow feeders and the babies tend to act more confident in numbers. There always seems to be a shy feeder or two though so I keep an eye out for whoever doesn't look like they got their fill & separate them out just at feeding time for a feeding or two on their own, and haven't had to do more than twice for any before they eat fine with the group again.
This may not work for everyone, and group feeding can potentially have some risks but to limit them I chop the food into bite sized pieces & feel the benefits outweigh the risks. Your mileage may vary baed on many factors so it's something one has to be comfortable with.

As for substrate I keep the babies in paper towel for the first 6 months or so. Purely for my own ease of care and being more on top of cleaning. It's easier to see how messy they have been on paper towel. I always keep a moss hide in with the babies, and a large but shallow water dish so nobody accidently gets stuck in there but they can also go for a swim. Also several flattened toilet paper & paper towel rolls on both the warm and cool sides. It gives them some cheap hides and areas to expore and exercise, I'll just stack them randomly.

One note, I personally avoid keeping any humid hides & water dishes on the hot spot. It tends to become a bacterial breeding ground.

[ConcinusMan]

I group feed but others separate. I would be worried about a constant wet/damp living area

Yeah, be careful with that. Often you see pics of newborns on wet paper towels but this is just to get them through their first shed, which happens immediately following birth. After they've all shed the substrate shouldn't be damp. They need a very shallow, easily accessible water dish at all times though, such as a peanut butter lid. This can be a bit of a problem because certain substrates will "suck" the water out of the dish like a straw and deposit it on the floor. If you're keeping them in tubs, watch for condensation buildup and tend to them often to make sure the substrate is dry.

I've bought baby snakes that were kept it "sweating" tubs and when they arrived, I had to treat them for blister disease. Luckily it was early stage and they made a full recovery. It can happen quite quickly. Just a week or two of conditions that are too damp. This is less of a problem with screen top enclosures. With those you can keep a small area of damp moss or substrate in a corner or end, while still keeping the rest dry. If condensation is building up on the sides, you need to dry things out. When I keep litters in tubs I also tend to use paper towels and change them for fresh dry ones daily. If there's only a few and they have plenty of room I use aspen but check it every day to make sure it's not getting wet.