Is my garter pregnant?

[SaytaSora]

This is Houdini! I caught Houdini in the wild a few weeks back and have been feeding him pinky mice every week (the pet store said it should be eating hoppers but Houdini won't eat anything with fur on it, so I've started doing 2 pinkies instead). Originally I assumed Houdini was a male, but it turns out it might be female and mating season season occurred before I caught the snake so it's entirely possible that I currently have a pregnant female. So here's 2 pictures of him/her, the tail was cut off after an injury in the wild, so if you need a picture with the old tail I have one. Can anyone guess if its male/female and if it's possibly pregnant? I heard that you should feed pregnant females more so I was just wondering if I should or not. Thanks!

[guidofatherof5]

I would say you have a gravid female there. Nice girth in the lower 2/3rds. Due probably anytime in the next 30 days?. Heck, she could drop them today but I think not. Looks like it could be a good size litter also.
Is that stubby tail all healed up?

[chris-uk]

Concur. Female. Probably gravid - whilst an over fed pet may end up chubby I'm sure the only way a WC garter will get that shape is when she's laden with young.

Time to call her "her" and not "he". :-)

[BLUESIRTALIS]

Agreed!
I would say you have a gravid female there. Nice girth in the lower 2/3rds. Due probably anytime in the next 30 days?. Heck, she could drop them today but I think not. Looks like it could be a good size litter also.
Is that stubby tail all healed up?

[Saji]

Oh yeah. Either that or she needs to contact jenny snake. Thats what my wild one looked like and I found a neonate sticking its head out of a crack of my rock wall today:-)

Saji

[Mommy2many]

That is definitely a very pretty girl snake you have there!

[SaytaSora]

Houdini can still be a girl name at least haha. How many pinkies should I be feeding her, and how often? I want the babies to get enough nutrition after all. The tail looks good, it closed up at the end and there's no signs of infection, to me she even seems happier that it's gone: she hangs out in the open of the aquarium more often

[Mommy2many]

Feed her what she wants. My gravid females were big piggies before they had their young. They could put down up to 10 pinkies each at a meal. That would be every 4-5 days or so. Sometimes less. Sometimes they wouldn't be interested at all. They will go back into a "food coma" when they are done. :) I always knew when Beauty was finished because she would go back into her rock cave. If either one stayed out near the food dish, I would put more in. Mostly because they didn't give their tank mates a chance to eat.

[SaytaSora]

Update: this morning Houdini gave birth to 21 live babies!! So thank you everyone for helping me out with that =). However... I read online to feed the babies in individual containers so that they don't get aggressive, so I got a bunch from the dollar store, poked some holes in the tops, then added a couple pieces of tilapia fish to each. One baby ate immediately, but the other 20 did nothing... Some wrapped their bodies around the fish pieces but other then that, nothing. I tried warming up the pieces with a blow dryer like I do with Houdini's pinkies, tried wiggling them in front of their faces, leaving them alone for a couple hours... Nothing. Any advice?

[guidofatherof5]

Congrats. Some babies don't eat for days or sometimes weeks. I wouldn't get too stressed about it. Wait a few days then offer again.

[Sehayes1982]

Try earthworms instead. Different snakes will react differently to various food items after being born. My plains garters took earthworm parts 3 days after birth.


Congrats. Some babies don't eat for days or sometimes weeks. I wouldn't get too stressed about it. Wait a few days then offer again.

[slipknot711]

agreed, cut up some earthworms. the wiggling the worms do may stimulate them enough to eat

[SaytaSora]

Update: the tilapia fish still weren't working so I cut up some dew worms for them (bought from a store) and a few ate without problems, for the remainder I put in tiny earth worms from my garden in the containers as well as the dew worm pieces which caused them to first eat the tiny ones then immediately eat their dew worm piece lol. It seems that they just needed to realise how to eat first, or they're just stuck up and want an appetiser =P

[SaytaSora]

So thank you for the suggestions! You guys are a huge help =)

[SaytaSora]

I regret to be posting here again but I have another issue... With 1 baby garter snake. All the babies have eaten now except for one, and the one who hasn't eaten is very thin and short compared to it's siblings... Today I noticed that it doesn't look like it has very much energy, it barely squirms when I reach in and when they had bath time today it just floated there instead of swimming around like the others. I feel like the little snake will die soon if it doesn't eat something, do you guys have any advice on how to get it to eat? I've tried fish pieces, small earth worms, and a dew worm piece. I'm about to try cutting a piece off of one of mom's pinkies once it's deforested as well.

[snakegirl909]

I'd say to try to get some small feeder guppies (not minnows), and put the snake in a small container with a few fish (and a little water). This has worked for me before.

[SaytaSora]

Update: pinky piece didn't work. At least I was able to give the rest to the mom haha. Where do you find feeder guppies? I've tried a couple pet stores and none have had them so far. Just feeder goldfish. I was wondering if I could try assist feeding, but its mouth is so small! How would I open it?

[snakegirl909]

My local pet shop has feeder guppies. They just look like small grey-ish fish. I'm not sure if large stores like petco/petsmart have them...
I'm not too sure on assisted feeding (I've never done it), but I'm sure one of the more experienced members will be on soon. Good luck with him/her!

[guidofatherof5]

Many shop sell a feeder fish called Gambusia. They are safe for garters.
Gambusia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambusia)

[snakegirl909]

Many shop sell a feeder fish called Gambusia. They are safe for garters.
Gambusia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambusia)
Yep, I'm pretty sure that's what I was referring to... My snakes love them!