My wild experience..wild garter!

[jaleely]

Well I don't know why it's taken me so long to post, other than i work like a maniac, and have school, tons of animals....oh yeah i'm crazy busy! LOL But i've been wanting to post so that counts, right? : )

This is Olive. Or, Oliver, since i haven't had the heart to probe and find out (She had a prolapse, which has since healed). We say she, though. Olive is a mid-eastern Oregon garter, found in the dirt road while camping over by Baker City Oregon, up in the Wallowa-Whitman forest area. Healthy, no mites. Ate fresh caught perch eagerly then shed, so i took her home. She's the only snake in my collection i've done burmation for, because she went crazy this winter, so i did what any unprepared person would do....and just put her cage outside *lol* she's used to 4 feet of snow, so i know i should have maybe handled it differently but she seemed happy enough. Went into her hide box and stayed still for a few weeks. Now, it only got to maybe 45 at night here, and upper 60's during the day but the moment it warmed up i brought her back in the house and she's doing fine. Activity was normal for a garter as i could tell, and she started trying to get out when winter hit, and now that we've done our "burmation" she's acting normal again. Begging for food, etc.
I still think she has some intestinal parasites, but when i was able to get some de-wormer and find the right dosage, she wouldn't eat because she wanted to burmate. Since coming out now i've given her a few meals and was going to try the medicine again soon. So for the meantime she's housed downstairs alone and away from my other snakes. (I did see what looked like eggs of some kind in her poop, when i looked under a microscope.)

Anyway...now the fun stuff!! Scientific names, anyone? I have some video of her "fishing" and can get some better close up photos, i just usually don't disturb her.