It's been fairly warm the last week or two. I'm not sure how warm it has to be for females to come out, but yesterday it hit 75 degrees. Everything here is in bloom. We've been hitting close to 60 degrees or more off and on for the last three weeks or so. We've had cold days as well, but the last week has been very, very nice. We're pretty much officially in spring.

The injury does make it hard to tell. Sometimes I can barely see where the vent is, but I believe that is is near the beginning of the discoloration on the tail. From the looks of it, it was damaged too, but it still seems to function properly. When we had the snake in the plastic container yesterday it did go to the bathroom.

I still lean towards female simply because of the size. It is about the same length as Cuddles, and thicker. Cuddles is about a year and a half old, I think, and about 10-12 inches in length. At the same size, this snake is about twice as thick as Cuddles and moves a lot slower (which is how we caught it).

One thing I've noticed is that, despite the fact that this snake is wild caught, it is very calm and will just sit in my hand calmly. It doesn't seem to mind being picked up and held at all. It doesn't even try to bite. Most of the garters I've caught in the wild have tried to bite me at some point or another....although most of them were much bigger than this one as well.