How to de-stress and get my wild caught baby garter to eat?

[Tzacol]

I caught it a couple days ago, it's about 5 inches. I have always had problems in the past with wild caught garters usually being too stressed to eat and having to release them soon. It's housed in a 30 gal tank with a heat lamp, water dish, hiding places, and climbing objects since it likes wandering around and climbing everything. I also have a 15 gal tank if that's better. I plan on feeding it slugs, earthworms, and baby pacific tree frogs which I raise myself. These frogs are very common where I got my snake from, and I've seen garters eating them before.

I'll see if I can figure out how to add photos from my iPod, wasn't working earlier and I couldn't even post this thread from it.

[guidofatherof5]

Do you know which species of garter you have? What state are you in? Knowing this helps us with advice.

[Tzacol]

It's a northwestern garter snake, I live in Oregon.


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[Tzacol]

By the way, I've only handled it twice and won't again until it eats regularly, once when catching it, and another when I took that picture of it, which was kind of useless since I couldn't get it to focus decently :P

[RedSidedSPR]

By the way, I've only handled it twice and won't again until it eats regularly, once when catching it, and another when I took that picture of it, which was kind of useless since I couldn't get it to focus decently :P

that's what I was going to say - don't handle it until it's comfortable and eating. other than that there's not a whole lot else you can do at this point as far as stress goes.. that's assuming you set up a proper tank with lots of hides and good temperatures.

[Tzacol]

Definitely lots of hides, though it mostly burrows underneath a fake log if it doesn't want to explore. As for temperature, the heat lamp is at the top in a corner, with part of the cage cooler and part warmer.

[guidofatherof5]

It's a northwestern garter snake, I live in Oregon.


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One of the sweetest garters on the planet. I would say slugs and earthworms would be high on the menu.

[RedSidedSPR]

That's fine. Just wondering.

hope he eats for you.

[Tzacol]

So far, so good. Checked the dish and neither slug nor earthworm are there. The slug probably just wandered off, but the earthworm wasn't going anywhere after having been chopped in half, so my guess is it was eaten I'll try feeding again in a day or two and let you know how it went.

Temp in a cooler area was 70, and the closest spot to the lamp was 92. Are those okay temps for northwestern garters?

[Mommy2many]

So far, so good. Checked the dish and neither slug nor earthworm are there. The slug probably just wandered off, but the earthworm wasn't going anywhere after having been chopped in half, so my guess is it was eaten

You'd be surprised where half an earthworm can crawl off to...