Something ive been waiting all my life for.

[suliman]

honestly, from the time i was 4 years old and my uncle picked up a snake and handed it to me, ive always wanted to have one as a pet. Incidentally from what i can recall it was some sort of garter snake which i held for an all to short period of a few mins, until my mother and grandmother yelled at me to put it down and run away.

although my family and friends refuse to understand how i feel about such a creature, i cannot give up on having my own snake. I will even go so far as renting out an apartment to house my snakes if i must.

anyway, ive decided to allocate around $200 to obtaining my pet, and i hope to have everything set up soon.

to all the experienced herp owners out there, if you had around $200 and were in my position, how would you get started. Im planning to look around my local pet stores in my city to find a pair of garters (preferably as young as possible, male and female), and something like a 20-35gal tank. Ive been reading the things i find online about garter care, though i can never get enough.

what were your first experiences with owning garters and any advice for a beginner?

also i must ask this. how cognitive are snakes. Do they recognize you as their owner. I know they can smell the air with their tongues, how does this affect their behavior to people, if at all.. Any info would be appreciated.

thanks.

[gregmonsta]

Sounds like your on the right track with reading up on garter care. :) a suitable escape proof enclosure, a heat-source, suitable substrate and a supply of suitable food + supplements and you're ready to go. You're also likely to get a better deal/selection obtaining your snakes from one of the many breeders on this forum ;) . I would say that they definately recognise their owners and each snake has it's own personality.

Here's the forum caresheet - http://www.thamnophis.com/caresheets/index.php?title=Garter_Snake_Care_Sheet

This is one I was putting together for other forums/future buyers - http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/husbandry/5454-check-my-caresheet-please.html

[guidofatherof5]

It's nice to have you on the forum. Your first experience story sounds so familiar to many of the forum members. The little scrubs imprint on us at a young age and from then on we're hooked. Greg has given you rock solid advice. Your $200 should be plenty good to start. My advice on an enclosure would be to buy used and save some money. Try Craigslist.com. Do a "reptile" search. Give the enclosure a good cleaning with some bleach. Garter snakes don't care about the price as long as it's comfortable for them. An old cardboard box can be a perfect hide to them.
Your snake will know you and come to trust you. I have some that shoot out to me to be held. They like interaction and are very curious about everything that goes on around them. I catch mine watching TV.
The care sheets Greg suggested are a good place to start. Get to know the safe food list for your snake. Nightcrawlers, slugs, safe fish(salmon,trout,tilipia), pinkies. The fish and pinkies can be bought frozen and then thawed for feeding.
The forum members are ready to help you in anyway. If you live in my area I will even give you a pair for my wonderful radixes free of charge.

[drache]

welcome to the forum

[Didymus20X6]

I've managed to put together a fairly intricate and comfortable enclosure for my snakes for not a lot of money. Of course, it took some work to put them together, but it's well worth it. I think I only spent about $25 just to get started, and with all the additions, expansions, and other things, maybe about $100 total.

Look through MY ENCLOSURE THREAD (http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/enclosures/5834-toms-snake-enclosure.html) to see if anything there gives you some ideas.

Also, for inside, I recommend using natural rocks, tree limbs, etc. Just be sure to bake them in the oven at 225F for a good long time to kill any unwanted organisms.

[Charis]

200 dollars is a good amount to start with. My advice would be to get creative with your enclosure, there are a lot of neat things you can do for very little money, they just take some time to find or put together. The other thing I would suggest is looking around & finding the type of garter you want most & getting a pair of those to start off with, even if it takes most of your money to get the type you really want. When I got my first snake, a classic corn, I didn't really care what morph & got this one at the pet store (paid too much for a classic too) it was the first one I'd seen that I liked. However pretty soon I'd seen so many pictures of the morphs that the pet store doesn't carry that I ended up really wanting some of these other kinds. So if you only plan on getting one or two, make sure it's what you really want, not the first ones you can get.

[suliman]

i live in jersey city/nyc area. i would love to find someone close by.

thanks for all the great comments. didymus, i was reading your enclosure post even before i registered on these forums. The only thing i feel is that its not conventional, however you seem to be getting much praise for innovation and your snakes seem very good with this setup. Also, that enclosure seems to be almost escape proof considering its a sealed container. I definitely will consider this as an option to house them. any problems with this setup at all that you can find?

charis, the snake i want to get is whatever snake i find to have the best temperment. I wouldnt want to get a really colorful morph at the cost of it being too agressive for me to have issues whenever i need to care for it. My choice will be based purely on this factor, and if such a snake happens to be particularly pleasing to the eye, then thats always a plus.

[Mommy2many]

Welcome to the forum! I live on the New York / Connecticut border. I have 10 8 week old baby Eastern Garters if you would like a pair. They were born to my female "Stewie" on August 6th. They are eating salmon, earthworms and cut up pinkie parts. Also the occasional live fish. If you'd like, we could meet half way or something like that if you are interested. PM me with any ideas/thoughts. Good Luck!:D

[Charis]

Good, if you are thinking about what you want in a snake. My advice was more don't get the first garter you see just because you really want a snake right NOW. Sometimes that works out okay but sometimes you regret it later.

[mustang]

WELCOME ur first expierience is better than mine...when i was little my dad told me to come out side and said he killed a snake so he showed me and flung it over the fence then we went inside to see if he was killing a venomus snake and he cursed a lot saying it was a "good snake" a checkered garter! ....now i have one as a pet o thee irony! good luck with urs ...i started with a small aquarium but then he kept hitting his head on the wall so i spent $80 on a 55 gal! so if i were u id go ahead and get ur snakes but save up to get a bigger aquarium asap!

[sirtalis01]

hey im in ny city..if you want we could meet some where and you could have a pair of my oregon red spotted free of charge:D..they are beautifull



i live in jersey city/nyc area. i would love to find someone close by.

thanks for all the great comments. didymus, i was reading your enclosure post even before i registered on these forums. The only thing i feel is that its not conventional, however you seem to be getting much praise for innovation and your snakes seem very good with this setup. Also, that enclosure seems to be almost escape proof considering its a sealed container. I definitely will consider this as an option to house them. any problems with this setup at all that you can find?

charis, the snake i want to get is whatever snake i find to have the best temperment. I wouldnt want to get a really colorful morph at the cost of it being too agressive for me to have issues whenever i need to care for it. My choice will be based purely on this factor, and if such a snake happens to be particularly pleasing to the eye, then thats always a plus.

[guidofatherof5]

hey im in ny city..if you want we could meet some where and you could have a pair of my oregon red spotted free of charge:D..they are beautifull

That is a very nice thing to do.

[suliman]

Good, if you are thinking about what you want in a snake. My advice was more don't get the first garter you see just because you really want a snake right NOW. Sometimes that works out okay but sometimes you regret it later.


yeah i definitely want a garter and i know their temperament can vary greatly, so i really want to be careful as to which i choose. Im also not sure if garters generally retain their temperament as they get older. can they sometimes change over time and become more friendly if they are aggressive and vice versa.

i find that garters are more of what i want in comparison to a larger snake like a ball python which i find seems to sleep most of the time and seem very non interactive.. but these are just first impressions i get, so no idea really.

[guidofatherof5]

I've never had one go from docile or easy going to aggressive or mean.
If they start out that way they seem to loose it. I have a male that took 7 months to calm down. Now, he's first out to greet me and one of the calmest males I have. Sometimes it take small steps and a lot of patients. This has just been my expirience with my radixes and T.s.p (red-sided).

[Mommy2many]

My garters are a mix of W/C and C/B. I only have one that will actively try & bite me, Midnight. She is a wild caught and I chalk her behavior up to that and the fact I do not handle her alot. My other wild caught is pretty mellow (Stewie) and all of the babies have been handled since birth. A few will musk but never bite and all have pretty nice temperments. My Dekayi is wild caught and though a spaz, does not musk or bite. my other 2, Jesse & Noodle are adoptees and are also spazzy but do not musk or bite. Garters are the best snakes to have, as anyone on this forum will tell you! Good luck on your selection. A $200.00 allowance for setup should net you a pretty sweet enclosure. as Steve said, check out Craig's list. I just picked up 2 aquariums last weekend, a 25 gallon and a 30 gallon for $20.00! My sister took one, so it only cost me 2 hours of my time and $10.00 in the end! Garters are not picky about the hides, until they have a favorite, so almost anything will do. water dishes can be the chinese takeout dishes, food dishes can be lids to gladware containers. if bringing anything out from inside, remember to bake in oven at 225 for at least an hour or two, to kill buggies (you don't want mites!)

Let us know what you decide!

[ConcinusMan]

Hey suliman, this guy is close to you: http://www.thamnophis.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=194

He has beautiful concinnus'. My favorite.

If I were you, I would definitely take sirtalis01 up on his offer. T.s. concinnus is perfect for what you are looking for. I recently lost my baby. Still mourning. She died after giving birth to 23 healthy babies (+2 stillborn). She was wild-caught and I had her for 21 years, and she gave birth to around 150 babies throughout the years. Every individual I have ever handled, even wild caught, had a great temperment, quickly settling down when handled. With PROPER handling, she even seemed to enjoy it. On top of that, they're beautiful. Females seem to be "smarter" with lots of personality and charm, while males tend to be a bit more spirited and defensive, preferring to be left alone. You'll want a female, that's for sure. (or get a sexed pair) They get bigger than males too.

[suliman]

Hey suliman, this guy is close to you: http://www.thamnophis.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=194

He has beautiful concinnus'. My favorite.

If I were you, I would definitely take sirtalis01 up on his offer. T.s. concinnus is perfect for what you are looking for. I recently lost my baby. Still mourning. She died after giving birth to 23 healthy babies (+2 stillborn). She was wild-caught and I had her for 21 years, and she gave birth to around 150 babies throughout the years. Every individual I have ever handled, even wild caught, had a great temperment, quickly settling down when handled. With PROPER handling, she even seemed to enjoy it. On top of that, they're beautiful. Females seem to be "smarter" with lots of personality and charm, while males tend to be a bit more spirited and defensive, preferring to be left alone. You'll want a female, that's for sure. (or get a sexed pair) They get bigger than males too.


when you say "sexed pair" you mean male and female?

[ConcinusMan]

Sure. I mean confirmed male and female when I say "sexed". It's also helpful if they are about the same age, and not too closely related. I can tell the difference between the two sexes on sight, even when they are around only 1 year old. It's not difficult at all, and doesn't really require any probing or anything that drastic. Basically a male is much thinner than a female, has a slightly smaller head, and the distance between vent and tip of tail is long and tapered compared to females which have a thicker body, bigger head, and distance between vent and tip of tail is shorter and tapers off quickly. Females also get much larger than males of the same age. I've encountered wild females as large as 38 inches. My girl died at around 24 years old (21 in captivity) and 42 inches (3.5 feet) long. Seriously, why haven't you jumped on the offer to get a pair for free? Get them, or at least get one female. I have owned many species of snakes over the years but even among different species of garters, none have been such great pets as my T. s. concinnus. They live long, get large, are easy to care for, will breed readily, usually after a couple of years together right after emerging from a couple of months of winter rest. Or, no harm is done if winter rest is skipped altogether if you don't plan on breeding. Honestly, they're great snakes even for beginners.

Go for it. Get one or two. You won't regret it. Like I said, I kept my female for 21 years! If for some reason you don't have one by May or so of 2010. (it's too late in the year for me to provide one now) I can provide healthy, fairly tame, (won't bite) wild-caught for only shipping cost. The wetlands/parks/public areas around here are thick with them and there's no local laws against collection/keeping of garters. I only recently discovered this website after releasing over 150 babies which I captive bred. 23 released just last summer. I didn't know they could be sold, or even given away. D'OH!

Mine look slightly different than the captive bred ones that sirtalis01 has. His look more like the Benton county, Oregon individuals. Mine look like the Multnomah county, Oregon in the face, head, and neck, but have way more orange on the sides, just like his, and just like the Benton county, Oregon one's found on this page: Thamnophis sirtalis concinnus - Red-spotted Gartersnake (http://www.californiaherps.com/noncal/northwest/nwsnakes/pages/t.s.concinnus.html)

Let me know what you think. I'm convinced that this species/subspecies is perfect for beginners and with some commitment can bring you years of joy.

[suliman]

yeah ive already contacted sirtalis about his offer. he says he can offer me a pair (male and female). im still condsidering my options for enclosures. what do people think of this setup?

http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/enclosures/5834-toms-snake-enclosure.html