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[kibakiba]

Mama is slithering backwards quite a bit today, is that normal? She's been doing it a little the past few days but I didn't thing anything of it, but i was letting her sit on my desk and she started slithering backwards and then she slithered onto my legs, turned around and slithered backwards up to my stomach. I've never seen her do that before. She slithered backwards when I put her in her tank again. She's eating fine and acts normal, just slithers backwards sometimes. Maybe I'm overreacting but I haven't seen a garter snake do that :P

[Stefan-A]

My wandering garters use that slithering backwards routine to get out of your grip when you handle them.

[kibakiba]

I wasn't holding her when she was on my desk or on my leg, or in her tank. She does pull herself backwards if she doesn't want me handling her, but this was her just... freely slithering backwards.

[Stefan-A]

I'm not talking about pulling backwards, I'm talking about freely slithering backwards.

Nevermind.

[kibakiba]

I mean it in a different sense but :P I didn't have my hand anywhere near her and I wasn't planning on moving her unless she got close to the edge. but again, I had never seen her do that so it made me curious.

[ConcinusMan]

My ordinoides and concinnus do that but usually only after they've grabbed a mouth full of food and don't want it to get stolen by the others. Sometimes the backward slithering goes all the way up the wall!

[kibakiba]

Haha, I've seen snakey do that when I fed him a pinky. He went up the tank and almost out of it. Maybe he was trying to trick me into letting him out of there :P She hasnt gotten food in about 4 days... She's been staring at my fingers hungrily lately

[ConcinusMan]

That's a good thing. That's how you earn their trust and they come to think of you as their provider. That's how a "tame" garter made. That's how it starts.

[kibakiba]

Indeed. She's very tame now, its just easy to tell when shes hungry, she sees me near the tank and rushes out to see if I brought pinkies... There's a little glass that I use when I thaw the pinks, she goes over to it and stares at it. Haha, she's such a pig

[kibakiba]

Mama's acting strange today. She's very skittish for one, she never really flinches or gets spooked when I take the top off, but today she got really scared when I opened it to change their water. When I picked her up around an hour ago she was breathing really fast and every third or fourth breath she took a big breath, enough to puff herself up a little bit. She also occasionally looked like she ate something, like pushing it down. I put her back in the tank because I thought maybe I had stressed her out but she appears to be doing the breathing thing still. Snakey's been trying to mate with her a lot also... He chased her around the tank for an hour. I took him out about 20 minutes ago and Mama came out to rest on top of the hide. When I put Snakey back she just sat there and let him slither on top of her. He doesn't seem so into her now. Other than the breathing and skittishness she's acting pretty normal, not as curious as she normally is, though. She just sat around on my hand when I held her. I got some pictures of the little bit of friskiness and runt when he was eating earlier today. He's more trusting of me now, he actually ate from the tweezers today.


Ignore the camera flash, sweetheart...



Noooo... Leave me alone darn it!


Smile big for the camera!