Chris' garters

[chris-uk]

I've not updated the forum properly for a while, but after meeting Greg (again) and Steven Bol (for the first time) at Doncaster yesterday, and picking up a couple of babies while I was there, I figured it might be time for me to do a quick update on my brood.

The garter snake count is currently standing at 17... so from 1 to 17 in a little less than 3 years the bug has truly bitten me. So I'll run through the brood in the order I acquired them.

Binky belongs to the wife, she started us off. Binky is a female albino Checkered Garter (CB11). She's great to hold because she's quite calm and doesn't make the quick movements that some of the others do. We've never had a problem with her eating or shedding, other than the sheds often being a surprise because her eyes don't blue up as obviously as the others.

Eskerina is the only one I still have of the CB11 normal Checkered Garters that John McCann gave me, one of her sisters lives with our friends 2 minutes away, and the two others FTT. She's growing slowly which I think is partly related to the kinks in her spine, I'm not sure how but she doesn't seem to grow much longer, when I let her eat more she turns into a fat sausage.

Next up the Lake Cuitzeo Garters (CB10) - Laccrimosa and Vladamir.
Lacci is the biggest of my garters, length is somewhere north of 100cm and weighs in at around 400g at the moment. She's currently living with a radix and a paritalis in my largest viv (120x60x60cm, granite effect background, big swimming pool with real Dartmoor granite islands, heated shelf with warm hide underneath, LED spot and strip lights... it's a palace of of viv, I really should do a thread about building it...). Lacci happily comes to the viv door to investigate when I open it, but often waits for Nobby to check that all is safe first.
Vlad is much more timid and will usually go and hide when I open his viv, he's shacked up with a radix who's the opposite. He eats more sporadically and hasn't grown very quickly.
I'll give this pair a chance to mate in the Autumn as that seems to be when they are most actively courting (according to information from Steve Bol) and I want to produce my next generation of Cuitzeos next year. I won't be keeping them together permanently, I don't think it would do them any harm, but I don't want more than one litter.

Next in were the Western Blacknecks (CB11) - Sybil and Vimes. They're my slowest growing and most frustrating to feed. Vimes is worse than Sybil, but both went for 6 months without eating over the winter.
Sybil is now living with the checkered girls (Binky and Esk) but I have to take her out to feed because she likes to take her time and the checkereds would have scoffed her food before she'd even come out.
Vimes lives on his own and is very much a hider. He's a "look don't touch" snake.

Nobby, the WC "northern" T. s. parietalis was my rash purchase from a shop, I've got her down as being a 2011 snake from Canada, but who knows with snakes imported as "Northern Garters". She's actually a challenger for "Most Friendly Garter" award, always at the glass watching me when I'm in the room, and she's Lacci's best friend (they are almost always curled up together).

So the count is on seven so far...

Next in were the two snakes I wish I didn't own...
Adora Belle and Lipwig belonged to John and are the two that I took in when he was in hospital. They are both Plains Garters, probably captive bred in Europe but age and origin unknown (John rescued them from a Preloved ad). Both are really outgoing friendly snakes that enjoy being held, Lipwig is the best finger-winder I've got. Adora I think is actually quite old, and last she threw jellybeans for a couple of months, this year she threw a couple, so I've decided that she isn't ever going to reproduce for me.
Lipwig has a really bright orange stripe and I want to breed him to get another generation. He has a younger girlfriend in the wings (I've not told Adora yet).

Next up are three from Sjoerd (Reptileparadise) that I picked up last September. Two female and one male California Red-sided Garters (CB12). We have Disco, Dante and Towering. All voracious eaters and the only ones I take out of their viv to feed for fear that they will eat each other - Disco in particular is one that will go for the food that one of the others is already swallowing rather than the bit of food under her own nose. They're growing quickly and in two years time I plan to breed both the girls to a younger, but unrelated male.

Then there's another one of Char's snakes, Twoflower, our male, CB12, San Francisco Garter from Fons. He was bigger than the infernalis last September, but had a long fast after Christmas, he was in a viv on his own but now his quarantine is over he's living with "The Infernal Three". He's eating pretty well at the moment, but won't catchup with the infernalis after missing nearly 3 months of feeds.

Next up are two normal checkereds - Esme and Gytha. Probably CB11. But these are a couple more rescued snakes, they came to me via Greg after a keeper in Scotland died and one his friends was looking for homes for them.
Esme is responsible for my worst bite. Both of them are skittish and defensive, I suspect that they've been fed live mice at some point and possibly not been handled too well. Both have kinked spines and bug eyes, so neither will ever breed but have a comfortable viv (currently behind me in my office - this morning I turned around to find Esme sneaking up on me, I'm hoping living in the room I work from will help them adjust).

Finally, the last two are little scrubs I picked up on Sunday from Greg and Steve Bol (two of the best people currently working with garters who I've had the pleasure of meeting).

From Greg is a beautiful radix girl, with an orange stripe. Violet is going to Lipwig's mate in a few years.
From Steve another infernalis. Blazing is a Sonoma County infernalis and unrelated to the two girls I got last year, so 2015 is looking like a good breeding year if all works out to plan.
The two little scrubs are currently settling in, I've seen plenty of Violet, but not so much of Blazing. I'll try them on a feed this evening and see how they get on with some small bits of fish. These are actually the smallest scrubs I've had, the checkereds I got from John were a month older by the time I got them, and these are a fraction the size of the Cuitzeo baby that Lacci had last year.

So, here's a little roundup of the current residents of my viv collection, I thought it was about time I had a post to drop in little observations about my guys other than the thread I have for the Cuitzeos. Sorry there aren't any pics in the post, I thought it was long enough and my camera got dropped a couple of weeks back (a smartphone camera just doesn't do the macros well enough).

[guidofatherof5]

Great update. Thanks Chris.

[chris-uk]

Another good update. Both the tiny radix girl and the little infernalis enjoyed a meal of trout this evening.

[reptileparadise]

I'm certainly not the only one missing pics!

[gregmonsta]

Yeah, pics or it didn't happen !!! Glad to hear the little orange monster hasn't skipped a beat. They were very eager feeders in that litter. Mine will have to wait 'till tomorrow as I only just got back a couple of hours ago.

[chris-uk]

Update.

With a couple of photos this time. After dropping my Canon G9 a few month back I've finally got round to replacing it, photos of the squigglies will be taken with a Panasonic GF6 from here on. And I have to say I'm impressed so far, very little shutter lag and good burst shooting means that tongue shots are much easier to capture. The only drawback is that the Canon had a good macro mode which allowed me to focus down to 1cm, my current lens is closer to 15cm minimum... looks like I need a macro lens, or maybe some macro extension tubes.

Both the tiddlers are doing well, they both eat consistently every 2-3 days so are growing nicely.
I got the name of the radix girl wrong in my post above, she's not called Violet, she's called Iodine. I don't know how I got the name wrong.

Anyway, the crux of today's post. Blazing shed this morning. He managed to leave the top of his head (extending about 2cm down the top of his neck) somewhere in the substrate, so having found the incomplete shed I checked him under the magnifier and couldn't see any sign of retained shed. I got musked for my efforts. After 10 minutes sifting the substrate I found the missing piece of shed, so that saved the little guy a trip to a shed box.

While he was out I snapped a few photos of him freshly shed -






Just so Steve (and Greg) don't complain about the lack of radix shots, here's one of Iodine just before she shed last -



And I'll close off with one for Californian snake lovers (you're looking at coils from four snakes despite just two heads in shot, these are all CB2012 from Sjoerd and Fons) -

[RicMartin]

Very Cool!

[jwolfe152]

nice pictures love the blue eyes in the last one makes them look all kinds of evil

[chris-uk]

nice pictures love the blue eyes in the last one makes them look all kinds of evil

I like the Cuitzeos when they have blue eyes - jet black body with blue eyes, and a creamy white chin.

But I do like the contrast of the infernalis in blue-phase against a recently shed tetra in that last photo.

[chris-uk]

We must all have those moments when you see a fantastic photo, but don't have a camera or simply miss the shot. I just had one of those moments.

Iodine was drinking, and being small and light the surface tension in the water was forming a circle around her head as she was pressing her mouth into the water, the angle of the light and my viewing angle meant that the dip in water was forming a halo round her head.
Now if I'd had a camera in my hand, a suitable lens to capture a closeup of her head from around 1.5m, and the viv door was open to remove the reflection... It would have been a fantastic photo to share.

I just have to settle for sharing my revelation that garters can make the water dip when they drink and don't break the surface tension.