Steve's Snake Observations

[guidofatherof5]

Being in my 50’s now I’m out of the fast lane and kind of an Old School guy. I’ve been wearing glasses for the last 25 years and said I would never wear contacts. That all change last night. Bare with me, there is a reason for this innocuous information
After arriving home wearing my contacts I went into the big snake room. I notice a couple of sheds in one of the enclosures and knew that my Big Girl had finally shed. A number of the radixes were out cruising around when I opened it up. Instead of the usual greetings I get from these guys, they headed for cover. I then saw a number of faces staring at me. One was my Big Girl, who usually greets me first. She started out to me but stopped and pulled back when I reached towards her. She was very tentative as she approached and was sampling the air more than usual. I’m not sure how to describe it but she seemed confused or puzzled. As she got a better look and smell of me she came quickly towards me. Once she had assured herself it was me, things were fine. The others who had been watching from shelter quickly came out after she was up on my arm. They were still apprehensive and were doing some heavy tongue flicking on approach. This has never happened before. The only thing I can attribute it to is the fact I didn’t have my glasses on. I have always worn my glasses when I’m working with them. This time they noticed something different about my face. Facial cues must be something they use to recognize safe from unsafe. It’s also interesting that the other snakes didn’t come out until the first snake wasn’t being killed by the stranger. This is just another interesting observation of these wonderful animals.
It’s interesting that even in this captive situation they use 2 of their senses in friend or foe identification. Of course, in the wild I’m sure when they see or just smell a human they might automatically recognize it as a danger.

I remember a situation that occurred in Omaha that was definitely different. While out herping, I came to a very large railroad tie retaining wall. I stood in front of it and stared, knowing it was prime garter snake habitat. While I stood there I notice approximately 10 little radix faces looking at me from different locations in the wall. I could get within inches of them as they would simply move farther back into the cracks and crevices they were living in. They didn’t hide out of sight but simply moved into a more safe position and continued to watch me. If I did reach for them they would hide out of sight somewhere in the wall.
In their home they apparently felt safe enough to continue watching me instead of hiding. This really brought home to me the fact these little snakes are very curious about what goes on around them.

[gregmonsta]

Wow great observation.

[Mommy2many]

Excellent Observation! These little guys have alot going on in their heads.

[CRIKEY!]

I knew they had some intelligence behind those serious eyes.

[guidofatherof5]

As most of you know the T.radix Ranch has seen its share of births this season. I have a number of large groups of Summer/Fall babies. I also have some very early Spring babies(radixes). As the latest babies arrived the older one were put more on automatic pilot. In that, when feeding them I didn't do an actual head count to make sure everyone was eating. This was my mistake. Tonight, as I looked in on an older group of well established babies I was shocked to see one in terrible shape. Very thin and in need of attention. I immediately pulled the little scrub out for some TLC. I placed in a feeding container(http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/husbandry/6122-feeding-container.html)and it started eating right away.
All I can figure is that this snake wouldn't come out to eat when the rest of them would. For whatever reason it refused to partake in feeding time. It's almost like it was a failure to thrive situation but in a well established eater.
I'm not sure "Failure to Thrive" is the right explaination for this with but I'm at a loss to know how to explain it. This group(Speckle's babies) were very well established as eaters and I notice no difficulties at all with any of them. Suddenly this one snake shows up in the group.
The thing that makes it even harder to understand is the fact it started eating the second it was offered food. The same food that is offered to the group. For some reason this little scrub decided to stop eating with the group to a point of being starved.
This forces me to re-evalute my feeding proceedures.
Has anyone else had this occur with any of their groups?

[GarterGeek]

I keep my two male garters together. Generally I remove them from their enclosure to feed them; however, they had some bouts of finicky-ness during the summer and I had to resort to feeding them together in their enclosure. One of them would not eat if the other one was near it. I think I even observed some sort of "dominance-like" behavior in the other snake. Whenever the non-dominant snake would approach the food, the other snake would turn sharply and place it's head in front of it. The dominant snake would do this everytime the other snake tried to move forward. You know how dominant wolves cut other wolves off from food with their bodies? - it was similar to that.

I'm not sure if I was just imagining it or what...Is it possible that it really was dominant behavior? Reptiles don't usually from hiarchies; although, didn't velociraptors roam in "packs?"

I'm sorry - this isn't really revelant to your problem. It just reminded me of my observation. Perhaps your snake is at the bottom of the "pack".

[guidofatherof5]

I'm sorry - this isn't really revelant to your problem. It just reminded me of my observation. Perhaps your snake is at the bottom of the "pack".

No need to apologize, that is the kind of observations this thread is all about.
I have seen exactly what you described. I have also seen that behavior fail when there is a large number of snakes moving towards the food dish. The dominate acting snake tries to keep the others way but is overwelmed but the sheer numbers.
Another interesting thing I've seen is revenge like behavior when someone steals food. I've seen the victim chase the thief down and rather than try to steal the food back they attack them by biting their back. I can understand this behavior if they are attempting to get the food back but when they are not even close to the food it sure looks like payback. It must be part of the feeding response since at no other time have I ever observed any of my radixes being aggressive towards each other. They crawl over and under each other, block each other from going in the hide and never show any anger. They simply tolerate what the other snake is doing.
Too bad people can't be more like Garter snakes. Of course, this would make dinner time a blood bath.

[count dewclaw]

I don't think it is a matter of what food you offered. I think this little one was at the bottom of the pecking order and just didn't get to the food.

[mtolypetsupply]

Steve. your "wearing glasses" post, and all your other posts, always make me smile, no matter what is going on in "mi vida loca".

I have two Pugets, and one will NOT eat when the other is around. And the other is a PIG and wouldn't leave a fish scale for the tiny one. they're 1.1 and I'm not sure anymore who is who, but when I take "Biggie" out, "Tiny" will eat. Thankfully, "Biggie" has readily adjusted to tub-feeding, so I can get some groceries into Tiny. Oh, yeah, and OF COURSE Tiny only eats feeder guppies, so I have to make the 20 mi round trip to feed Tiny.

ARRRRGH!!!!

And there is a human who acts like a garter, my daughter is as picky an eater as is Tiny!!!!!

[guidofatherof5]

One of my older baby groups(Spot's last,born April 17,09) were on the feeding rotation. This has been the most relaxed and well behaved group I have ever had. I put the food dish in and they came a running. The big difference for this group was the way they ate. Not one single fight or disturbance. Everyone took their food in a controlled manor. No one did the grab-and-go. Everyone sat around the food dish and ate like civilized little radixes.
Their mother(Spot, God rest her soul) was the same way, very calm and relaxed.
I have to be honest. I had to look back in my threads to find the birth date on these guys. In doing so, I was brought to tears as I saw pictures of Spot before the cancer took her. She is missed here at the Ranch but not forgotten.
Watching her kids grow helps to get over the loss of such a fine snake.
I'm glad to see her demeanor was passed on to the next generation of awesome radixes.
LeAnn(count dewclaw), you're going to be getting a couple from this group. These are some mighty fine radixes.