View Full Version : meet my newbie!
I havent been here much since Rook passed away, but im still alive :) I have been in the proccess of getting a new checkered for a while, but delay after delay// lol well she is finally home as of last night. I do have a question though, my option was really really young babies or a sub adult. now I have no idea what a "sub adult" means but I figered a slightly older snake would be better. now I was expecting a snae about the size Rook was when she passed away, so I set up the tank with Rooks old stuff(Jiffy has her baby stuff), now snake arrives last night and ..holy smokes she is HUGE! I have to get new stuff because Rooks stuff is way too little! so I am curious how old approx. might she be, and would she really be considered a "sub adult" ? I mean this girl is more then triple the size Rook was at 1 year, and Rook grew like a weed.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/critters/IMG_0049.jpg
my big girl is gonna need a name too!
CRIKEY!
10-16-2009, 07:02 PM
Congratulations! She's beautiful.
guidofatherof5
10-16-2009, 07:24 PM
What a big beautiful girl. Is she wild caught or captive bred?
I'm very sorry to hear about Rook.
Losing them is always a hard thing.
thanks! she is captive bred :) and we are calling her Miami since she came from Florida.
She's 33.6 inches long! Does that still count as subadult?
guidofatherof5
10-16-2009, 09:58 PM
At almost 3 feet I would think she would be an adult. I wouldn't argue the point with her.:D She's a beauty.
I'm sure we would all like to hear more about Rook. Must have been a special snake for you to choose its name as your screen name.
charles parenteau
10-16-2009, 10:07 PM
Very nice ,she is big!!
Mommy2many
10-17-2009, 07:10 AM
Beautiful caramel colored snake! Love the pattern & the colors. Congratulations!
adamanteus
10-17-2009, 01:20 PM
Beautiful new marcianus, Shayna!
indigoman
10-17-2009, 04:58 PM
My" miss piggy" albino marcy, is 25 in. and eats like her name is 1 yr. old, hard to tell with snakes but i would guess going on 2 yr. Beautiful color and seems to be very calm and enjoys being handled. Congratulation.
thanks guys!
I'm sure we would all like to hear more about Rook. Must have been a special snake for you to choose its name as your screen name.
you would have joined right when I lost Rook so you wouled not have heard too much about her, the folks that have been around longer would know, I adored her and went on about her endlessly lol
this was my beautiful Rookie, Miami has a lot to live up too :p
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/Rook/IMG_0391-1.jpg
Rook LOVED attention, I could take her out places with me and rather then get nervous, she insisted on watching, she would wrap herself around my hand like this and she would just hang out for hours, she would turn around and look at me cocking her head when I spoke to her. she was so calm and gental that I actually hand fed her, she ate her food right from my fingers, and sometimes insisted on eating her food while in the palm of my hand.
guidofatherof5
10-17-2009, 07:01 PM
Thanks for sharing that info. She's beautiful. I can tell by the photo she's a special and sometimes a once-in-a-lifetime snake. I've got one(Lucky) here at the Ranch that's just like that.
mustang
10-18-2009, 12:39 PM
HEY i got a checkered too!!! im robert!
more Miami!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/Miami/Miami1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/Miami/Miami2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/HappyFM/Miami/Miami3.jpg
Charis
10-18-2009, 10:41 PM
She is very pretty! I would certainly say, though, that she is an adult & not a sub-adult. Like the name too!
ConcinusMan
10-19-2009, 12:55 AM
My.... is 25 in. is 1 yr. old, hard to tell with snakes but i would guess going on 2 yr.
Jeez, how big are checkered's when they are born? I read somewhere 9-10 inches. Holy moley! and 25 inches at 2 years old? Sounds like they start big, stay big.
My concinnus are only about 3-4 inches long at birth, and take about 2 years to reach 18 inches. After that, they grow about 2 inches a year, sometimes a little more, then slow down as they age. So, at 25 inches they are around 6 yrs old. I rarely see one bigger than that in the wild though. At death (from old age I imagine), mine(a pair) were 21 years old and about 46(?) inches long. By contrast, T. ordinoides (Northwestern) in my area are much larger at birth,(5-7inches) but get nowhere near 30 inches long in their entire lives. Interesting.
lol Rook was 24" long when she died at 1 year :p
drache
10-19-2009, 06:09 PM
Miami is lovely, Shayna - congrats
ConcinusMan
10-20-2009, 03:32 AM
lol Rook was 24" long when she died at 1 year :p
She died at 1 year? How tragic! Why?
no idea, she was totally fine, everything was normal, she was quite healthy, then just days past the 1 year mark, we got up and found her dead, it was really sad. Rook was my baby, before I got her I was terrified of snakes, she was the first I ever touched, nevermind owned, and she is the reason I am hooked on Checkereds. :(
ConcinusMan
10-24-2009, 05:24 AM
Still scratching my head over "totally healthy" snakes up and dying for "no reason". I'm puzzled to say the least. Never happened to me. There was always a reason.
Anyway, there's really no reason to get hooked on a particular variety of garter, especially since you've only had that one checkered that died. I got very attached to several other garters of various species. They do have individual personalities you know. Mostly I have found that females (of 5 different species) were more "personable" and seemed to enjoy being handled, more than their male counterparts, generally speaking. No "replacements", even within' species, could replace any that have been lost. Especially those that were particularly smart and personable.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that what you felt for Rook is not something that is confined to a particular species of garter. If you're looking for a new pet or friend with personality, etc., it's not necessary to keep within species. (but, by all means, stay with garters)
So what do you think of your newbie so far? is she sweet?
mustang
10-25-2009, 09:30 AM
wow she dosnt have that super dark dash most checkers have behind their neck...on the other hand most have one and mine has 4 hehehe our snakes are different from the norm...GO UNIQUE!!!!
http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/yy158/JJmustang/IMAG0250.jpg
mustang
10-25-2009, 09:35 AM
lol Rook was 24" long when she died at 1 year :p
iv had mine since about may hes wild caught and hasnt grown much....maybe a few growth horomones hahahaha kidding thats really stupid. what/howofter did u feed rook
there probably was a reason Rook died, I just dont know what it was! she sure seemed perfectly healthy, she did regurgitate her food the night she night she died, but that was the only sign she showed of anything at all. that pic I posted was taken only a few days or a week before I lost her.
Rook ate fish, pinkies and earth worms, how often depends on what age, farley often at first, every 4 days I think, every 6 days when she got older. but she grew like crazy, always an inch or 2 at a time, weekly at first, then bi weekly, then monthly. Rook was a VERY healthy eater! it was actually something I was concerned about at first, always hearing about snakes that WONT eat, and how to get a snake to eat..this was not an issue of Rooks!
I am not hooked soley on Checkerds to the point of forsaking all others! there is actually a few other species are really want someday. I dont think the personality thing has anything to do with Checkerds, thats why I asked for a female..I bought a checkerd because my choices were Checkered, Plains or Blackneck..I didnt want another Plains or a Blackneck..so I got a Checkered lol. should propably mention that its not as easy to get reptiles here because most snakes are illegal to keep in Sask. because of this, most breeders refuse to come here for expos or anything.
Miami is calming down and doing quite well, she ate for the first time since she arrived on Thurs. she is starting to come out of her shell..she was pretty chicken at first..open the cage and she would curl in a ball with her head hiding under her body! but she doesnt do that anymore, and I am able to take her out for longer and longer periods without her getting freaked out, she seems to enjoy it now, which is the aim.
ConcinusMan
10-25-2009, 11:46 PM
All of this eating and growing reminds me that I think that too many keepers push their snakes to eat/grow at unnatural rate. Feeding twice a week is best left to the youngsters IMHO. It's natural for babies to grow fast and eat often but an inch a week? That doesn't seem possible. WHAT they were fed should also be taken into consideration. A small pinky meal is going to take longer to digest than a full "stuffing" of earthworms. My point is, you can literally feed/grow a garter to death and I believe slight underfeeding at times is better than overfeeding consistently. I fed whole fish, frogs, or anything with bones, sparingly. Once a month for adults, at most, and always waited a week, sometimes two, before feeding anything.
I cannot report that I have outstanding growth rates, but I can report that my snakes have always grown/shed at a rate that is to be expected of their species in the wild, under the best conditions.
I'm not saying this is what happened to rook. In fact, it's unlikely. But this got me thinking. Maybe she got a hold of some bad food. What did you feed her that last time she regurgitated, and the time (or week) before that?
The reason I ask is that I have seen clustered occurrences of sudden unexplainable deaths like you described and found upon investigation, that all the lost snakes ate the same food, from the same source. Twice this happened, it was pinkies. Once, it was fish from the same tank.
what she reguriated was a gerbil pinkie, what she ate the week before that I havent a clue, it was over a year ago. yes I had the concerns that she was eating too much, and I asked about it on here at the time and the reason I slowed down her feedings. but she was in fact growing about an inch or 2 per week, it was insane, I tracked her growth with pics in fact and measured her after every shed. I got so used to that with Rook being my first snake that when we got Jiffy and he didnt have even a remotly similer growth pattern we wondered what was wronge!
thinkmore
10-26-2009, 08:42 PM
Just to add to the conversation, I'm Shayna's mom, and Rook died some time ago so it's hard to remember details, lol.
We did realize when she passed that her under tank heater was not working. And it was that time of year here where the weather was changing, still hot during the day and needing a/c, but just starting to get cooler nights. It was only a bit on the cool side in her tank the one night; people here didn't think nearly cool enough to cause a problem, but I suspect for her it somehow was. I've heard that albino checkereds can be quite inbred and maybe don't have as strong immune systems as they could have. That was part of the reasoning for getting a normal checkered this time, hopefully a bit less delicate.
Losing Rook was really traumatic for both of us. As Shayna mentioned, it's really hard to get snakes at all in Saskatchewan. I know I couldn't bear to not have one at all, so I decided we'd have to get a baby from the wild, so that's how we have our little plains garter, Jiffy. He's mainly my snake though, doesn't eat or grow that much, lol, but I like him.
It has been a long wait for Miami, we're so happy she's with us!
guidofatherof5
10-26-2009, 08:56 PM
I know I couldn't bear to not have one at all, so I decided we'd have to get a baby from the wild, so that's how we have our little plains garter, Jiffy. He's mainly my snake though, doesn't eat or grow that much, lol, but I like him.
How about a picture of that radix, Jiffy. I'm sort of fond of radixes.:D
thinkmore
10-26-2009, 11:21 PM
It doesn't take much to get us snapping more pics, lol!
Here's wee little Jiffy, over a year old already.
771
He's your garden variety radix. I would seriously consider sacrificing one of my offspring for one of your red radixes though, lol. They are just the most beautiful garters I've ever seen.
And here's Miami again. This was supposed to be Miami's thread, lol.
772
(Sorry, you'll have to click to see them big. I can't get into the picture host right now.)
guidofatherof5
10-27-2009, 05:16 AM
It doesn't take much to get us snapping more pics, lol!
Here's wee little Jiffy, over a year old already.
771
He's your garden variety radix. I would seriously consider sacrificing one of my offspring for one of your red radixes though, lol. They are just the most beautiful garters I've ever seen.
And here's Miami again. This was supposed to be Miami's thread, lol.
772
(Sorry, you'll have to click to see them big. I can't get into the picture host right now.)
Both are great looking snakes. Jiffy may be a garden variety but that garden puts out some nice looking snakes. Jiffy is that dark phase with that short rounded snout. Great looking radix.
With Miami it looks like you've got your hands full. Thanks for posting the photos.
I'm not in a position to part with any of my red phase radixes just yet. That is my eventual goal, to make them available to everyone.
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