I got a contact on facebook that is catching some really nice blue/green garters in Florida but I think they're FL blue's, not similis' since he's in So FL. He's been bugging me to buy some (cheap). I'm tempted.

You're right about perhaps learning how to dose for worms, and getting some meds to have on hand, if you're going to be buying WC snakes. Most sellers don't bother and then you get all kinds of problems. The symptoms you're describing sounds like a heavy parasite load. Combine that with the stress of being captured and perhaps not kept under the best of conditions, and you will likely have problems, even if the snake didn't have any real health problems from the parasites when it was still in the wild. It's having that parasite load and then combining it with the stress / captivity, then the heavy load starts causing problems.


This is why WC gets a bad rap. Some people flat refuse to buy them, but what they don't realize is, if you properly quarantine and observe for health problems for a few weeks, and deworm them right, they really end up being just as good, if not better (better genes, better hardiness) than CB snakes. I don't know what kind of bad experience these people have had with buying WC snakes, but in my experience, once they are screened and dewormed, I have few problems with them. Now CB in my experience, can come with plenty of problems too. They are no less likely to have issues than WC , in my opinion. In fact, many CB lines seem inferior to me in many ways.