Hi here,

First, sorry if my english is bad, I'm french and not very comfortable with English... But I'll try anyway!

I live in french Ontario, I'm student and have 25 years. I have garter snakes for a long time ago (8 years... ok, maybe not so long in fact ). The first time, i caught two snakes : a male (named Juppé in French) and a female (Sarkotte) the same day, but the male was injured and died a few month later. The female is died two years ago, maybe old age, when I caught a little female (Alliote) to keep her company. Unfortunately, the little female (maybe one year aged) escaped last summer and I never found her.

Sarkotte had a very good character, loved to curl up under my sweater and wasn't wild at all. She spent all her time with our family, on our table, chairs and others, never frightned, even by my cat who were afraid by her ^^

And this summer, I saw a big and wonderful female on my porch. She was sunbathing. I caught her, named her "DSK" and take her in a big terrarium, but she was very wild. I'll try to tame her, but never can take her in my hand without getting bitten. So I decided to release her, thinking she will be more happy outside. But in august, she has become much more aggressive. You can see her in theses pictures :

Before her molt :
ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

And after (she ate a lot... never see that Oo)
ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

And one morning, I had a very nice surprise: in the terrarium, there wasn't only a snake, but 21. DSK was a big mum who gave birth to twenty little babies. They were very cute. Today, unfortunately, DSK is dead. She swallowed a piece of wood with her worms and couldn't spit it. My vet think she has make a intestinal obstruction... But her babies are always alive. Just one died because he won't eat, too small and fragile, and I stuffed two others who are alive now and as big as others. Everybody is big and very beautiful. Now they hibernate for winter and I hope they will still alive next spring.

I don't know if I'll have to release them or if I'll keep them in spring. It wasn't in my plans (or in my dream ^^) to have 19 snakes. But I'll see after winter.

Here are some pictures of my dear babies :
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...59335148_n.jpg (this is Arsenic, the bigger female, more pale than others and as wild as her mother... very nice one)
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...25561672_n.jpg (picture taken a few days ago, before hibernation)
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...50344094_n.jpg (this is Belladone, the smaller male, who has stole his worm to Arsenic... maybe a bit pretentious ^^)
http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...88569471_n.jpg (and on this picture, you can see a lot of babies, with Arsenic in the middle, more pale than her brothers and sisters)

That's it for today!

A few days ago, I started looking for breeders who may be interest by trade and I found the Jeff Benfer who advised me to contact and join you. So I come on this forum to share my experience if I can, and learn a bit to give the best to my babies.

So thanks for this forum and have a good evening everybody

Asyne