Some new questions...

[EasternGirl]

Well, first off...Bibur is eating like a champ now! Also, I bought some fake plants for his enclosure and he loves to slink around in them all the time. Thanks for all of the advice on here.

I am wondering if Bibur is a baby or just a small male...he is still very frightened of me, so I can't pick him up to look at his face. Any other way to tell?

I have a 25 watt basking bulb in his dome lamp...is that the correct wattage?

Thanks again for any help you can offer!

[ConcinusMan]

Why would you look at his face to find out his sex? Are you looking for whiskers? LoL. I'm just kidding.

The way I figure out what wattage to use, is I place a meat thermometer on the substrate directly under the bulb. Once the substrate is fully warmed as far as it will go, it should read 80-88 degrees. 90 is OK too as long as the ambient air temperature on the cool end doesn't go above 75. The surface of the substrate should be 80 at minimum underneath the bulb.

This thread should help you determine sex. http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/breeding/5069-sexing-pics.html

Here's a cool app for accurately measuring your snake easily. I use it every time my snake sheds. I record the date of each shed, and length of the snake using this program. Skins are not accurate because they stretch or shrink. If your snake is under 12 inches, that is what I would call a "baby"

Apps (http://www.serpwidgets.com/Apps/apps.html)

[kibakiba]

If you post some pictures we could help you identify his sex. Males are smaller, but not too much smaller. My male Snakey is about 1.5 ft while Mama is 2.3 ft. To me, he looks to be a yearling, even though he is in fact over 2 years old.
I've found that when you leave your hand in their tank and let them come to you they start developing trust more. It does take time to build their trust and they will trust you on their own time. You can't force them to trust you. Feeding them and changing their water is also a good way to get them to trust you, they will come to realize that your hand is the source of food and water.
I have 2 extremely skittish babies that I cant hold without them musking me, Squirt and Snap. I do hold them anyway and they start to calm down after a while, but for the most part the only handling is a weekly look down to make sure that they're doing okay. My other three babies have calmed down quite a lot and will usually allow me to pick them up without much of a fuss. My adults are both calm and are used to my hand being in the tank. Snakey, however, doesn't enjoy being held or picked up. He'll tolerate it a little bit every once in a while or he'll seek the attention when he wants it. I've found that females are more calm and tend to tolerate handling more than males do.

The lamp depends on the heat its putting out and what size of enclosure he's in. I use a 40 watt basking lamp for daytime and 25 watt night lamp (it doesn't put out any light, only heat). These go on my 20 gallon and 15 gallon tanks. I'd make sure that Bibur cant go up close to the lamp. It can burn him, but the wattage also doesn't seem like enough to be too bad. I'm sure another member would be able to tell you more than I can. :)

[ConcinusMan]

The lamp depends on the heat its putting out and what size of enclosure he's in. :)


Chantel has a good point. Wattage will not tell you anything about the heat output. You really do need to measure that with accurate thermometer. One 60 watt bulb might not be too much, but a different 60 watt bulb might have too much heat output. Wattage just tells you the energy use. That energy can be put out as visible light, heat, or both, in varying proportions. That's why florescent lights use less energy. They put out most of their energy as visible light, but hardly any heat. Incandescent bulbs vary in their light/heat output ratio. Ceramic heat emitters are really just light bulbs but all their energy is put out in the infrared spectrum - in other words, no visible light. Only heat. If using one of those, 40 watts is usually enough for a 10 gallon tank.

[EasternGirl]

Attached are the only pics I have been able to get of Bibur so far, and they probably won't help. He still hides when he sees me most of the time, and as far as picking him up....he really freaks out! You should see me trying to move him so that I can clean his enclosure. He does let me pet him now to wake him up in the morning...until he figures out what's going on. He does have a very small tail and he is very thin. I measured him and he is about 10 inches. If I can ever get him to let me hold him up and get a pic of his underside...I will post the pics.

I have a reptisun basking bulb that is 25 watts in a dome lamp. I will put a meat thermometer in his enclosure and see what the temp is today. I haven't been using the heat pad as much....I ordered a seedling heat mat and I think I am going to buy a night heat bulb.

As far as his face goes...I thought I read something on a caresheet about counting the "labials" on his face to determine sex? Maybe I was wrong.

[Stefan-A]

Looks like a fairly normally built garter, especially if it's a male. If it's only 10" long, there's not much of a difference yet anyway. Stubby tails aren't uncommon among wild garters, either.

Labial counts are only used for determining the species.

[guidofatherof5]

Here's a link to the help sex your snake.
http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/breeding/5069-sexing-pics.html