breathing click noise ! help!

[ConcinusMan]

Try dicing up worms, preferably night crawlers (stay away from the blood red striped worms, they are toxic) and also dice up some pinkies while still frozen, and mix them up with the worms really well, then allow them to thaw, mix well again. Offer them the mixture in a dish or tray. Northwesterns will usually eat around the pinky parts but it's worth a try. As far as fish goes, it's nearly impossible to disguise that using worms. It's far easier to get fish eaters to eat fish-scented rodents.

[kibakiba]

I got mine eating pinkies by cutting up night crawlers and simply placing a whole pinky on top of them in a dish. Mama started eating them like that and now she just takes them without any scenting. Snakey took a pinky with absolutely no scenting at all.

Also, both Mama and Snakey make clicking noises when they breathe, too. They always have. There's never been any mucous or bubbles around their mouth and nose or anything on the tank sides, so I assume that they're fine. They look healthy, move around a lot, eat very well, etc. I can hear it without putting them up to my ear, however, it's less noticeable when they aren't close to my head. Runt also has a faint click sound when she breathes, but she has to be close to my ear for me to really hear it. My concinnus don't click when they breathe, though. It seems weird that it's only my ordinoides (northwestern).

[ConcinusMan]

I got mine eating pinkies by cutting up night crawlers and simply placing a whole pinky on top of them in a dish. Mama started eating them like that and now she just takes them without any scenting. Snakey took a pinky with absolutely no scenting at all.

Also, both Mama and Snakey make clicking noises when they breathe, too. They always have. My concinnus don't click when they breathe, though. It seems weird that it's only my ordinoides (northwestern).

I noticed the same thing over years of keeping both. I never have heard it from concinnus' but it's very common to hear a clicking noise from healthy northwesterns. Nothing to be alarmed about.

[kibakiba]

I wasn't alarmed, I figured it was normal since they are all seemingly healthy. Sometimes Mama will come up to my ear and breath in it, it tickles a lot and its kinda cute because she'll just sit there on my shoulder. She once tried forcing herself into my ear... She's a bit on the... "coo coo" side.

[ConcinusMan]

And I was talking to the original poster of this thread and the forum members in general, not you specifically. I know you aren't alarmed by it.

[kibakiba]

And I was just stating that I wasn't alarmed. Maybe I wasn't even talking to you specifically.

[flickerfriend]

The pics are very small, making it difficult to say with certainty, but given the location you indicated earlier, I'd say that T. ordinoides (Northwestern Garter Snake) is the most likely candidate. The big one is definitely a female. Not sure about the other.

Here's another really old and large laterally striped female I found this year. She passed away not long after having a litter of babies for her new owner, Don Belnap.(ssssnakeluvr) Her babies are doing well. She's the orange striped snake sitting with Oregon Red Spotted garter snakes (T. sirtalis concinnus)



Here's some variety of them, all found near each other:



My red stripe girl. She was gravid (pregnant) at the time:


Here she is with an erythristic (exceptionally red) male. Note the difference in body type between the male and female. Females are thicker and their tails taper abruptly.

Hey! is the red snake at the bottom Flicker? btw hows he doing with brumating?

[ConcinusMan]

He's not brumating. In my judgement he was at a very minimum body mass to be considered healthy in this pic. This was taken when I first got him. I introduced him to the female I intend to breed him to. He definitely likes her as you can see. He's very healthy and an awesome smart wonderful tame snake. She's brumating but I've been fattening up flicker with lots of slugs daily and I just now got him eating scented pinkies consistently. It's working. He's growing and gaining body mass. He'll get a short brumation with her soon. I just felt he wasn't ready in Oct.