Hello all. Figured I should probably join the forum since I spent all day reading on it. Very useful information, and hopefully it will help me give St. George much better care.

I honestly had never planned to get any snake, since most 'pet' snake types were bigger than I was interested in, and everything I had heard about the smaller types were that they didn't curl about your fingers, but would just always travel straight.

Then I found St. George in the middle of a road covered with otherwise dead garters and picked him up to move him. He instantly started curling around my fingers. So he came home with me. Sadly, I had everything at my house to set up a more than suitable tank for him. Two actually once my we have finished making a snake proof lid for the 29 gallon he will eventually be moved permanently to.

I am assuming he is male based on the fact that he seems to have a long, thin tail, but I could of course be wrong on that. He's been in my care for about a week now, and currently his primary food is slugs, since I have a plethora of these in my garden and I'm saving the earthworms I've been catching in a suitable breeding/living area for winter. I'll also be getting some feeder guppies to give him more variety to his diet, as well as some calcium powder.

Since finding him I've done at least a little more research on garter snakes every day, and have decided that there will likely always be at least one living in my house, since they truly do come in some beautiful colors and variations. However, I believe that St. George is a Thamnophis elegans vagrans and as such, a snake eater, so no tank mates for him.

Oh yeah.. Guess I should say something about me. My name's Megan, and currently I'm an unemployed artist living in Montana. I've never owned a snake in my life, much less a garter, so any and all advice is more than welcome!