Hi, all!

I recently 'came into' a garter ... she came into the building to get out of the cold and by the time she was discovered, it was too late to put her back out so that she could hibernate like a sensible critter. In order to save her from the screaming non-snake-people around, I brought her home and set up my tank (which has been uninhabited for awhile).

She seems to be settling in nicely -- she took some earthworms from me during a few days that were warm enough that I could dig a few up from the garden. She has also expressed an enthusiastic love for fish. I know that a diet of all fish isn't healthy for her, and now that the ground is frozen, I won't be able to dig up worms.

I have a series of questions:

1) Are worms from a bait shop likely to be safe for her, assuming that I do just get plain nightcrawlers and not any of the red varieties? There are no local pet shops that stock worms as a food source for snakes, unfortunately. Just crickets, frozen mice of various sizes, and feeder fish.

2) My ultimate goal is to release her in the spring -- is it likely that she'll be too 'tame' after several months of handling (since I DO move her to feed her -- I have her bedded in aspen which she adores burrowing in) and regular feeding?

3) Since she has NO interest in even scented pinkies, is it likely to harm her to not eat mice during the few months that I'll be keeping her?

Additional information that may or may not make any difference: She (or he ... I haven't gotten that up-close-and-personal with her) is fairly young -- she's about 10" long or so. She has the markings on her face of a garter and given her fondness for earthworms, I feel pretty secure in my belief that she's a garter and not a ribbon. She seems to be healthy -- her scales are bright and shiny, she's active, and she plays in the water every time I change it almost as soon as my hand has vacated the tank and left her 'alone' with the water dish.