New arrivals

[kibakiba]

Depends. I have one of the smallest species of garter snakes. They grow extremely slowly. My 8 month old ones just hit 9 inches. My 1 year old hit 13 inches 3 weeks ago. When they were born, they were two and a half inches long, the runt was two inches and Pumpkin was 3.5 inches. He's also the best eater and the fattest baby. They were born on March 5th. I'd say they're growing pretty well. Yours looks a lot older than mine. At least, on your avatar it looks to be about the size of my 1 year old, Runt.

[RicMartin]

Congrats!

[kibakiba]

Who's ever heard of a northwestern that was scared of worms? I wanted to add some variety to my babies diets... gave some worms and they all did a threat display and I got some hisses out of extra spots (now no spots) and Dots. Never seen any of them do that before. I've given them worms before and they wouldn't take it, but now they really wont.

[Mommy2many]

Those worms can be terrifying!!! Poor babies; traumatizing them like that

[kibakiba]

I know, I'm such a mean grandma to them. Maybe it's the equivalent of getting s kid to eat their veggies... They want nothing to do with it. A couple ate a piece about half the size of their heads, one spat it out after biting it.

Here's a little update on what I'm calling them... Pumpkin is obviously staying pumpkin, and the one with a silvery colour is Silver... Then there's the 2 normal babies, Spots and and NoSpots and the runt of the bunch is Dots. They're just names I use to identify them, I'm not keeping all of them, and my holdback is likely Pumpkin and maybe one of the others.
Nospots was "extra spots" but he's starting to get so dark that you cant see that extra row of spots anymore. The others are developing very small spots, like extra spots had... Only not so noticeable.

[Sonya610]

99% of that, if not all of it, was frozen at some point. That stuff simply doesn't keep more than a day or two at most if not frozen.

I didn't read the whole thread but this is something I wondered about. Salmon is a very very parasite ridden fish, I believe trout is too.

As a sushi lover I know the rule about that type of fish (or really most all fish) is have it frozen in an INDUSTRIAL freezer for at least 2 days to kill off all the parasites before eating raw. Raw salmon and trout can be very bad for canines as well due to all the worms and such.

Are garters immune to those parasites? I am thinking I would prefer frozen just to be on the safe side.

[kibakiba]

Garters aren't really immune to parasites, I haven't heard of them being immune to anything. Why would a canine eat salmon or trout? You have to freeze the fish anyways, you cant just keep it in the fridge. It'd go bad in a matter of days. I keep my fish in the freezer for 2 weeks before feeding it to my snakes... If I don't get a hold of it and eat it myself

[Sonya610]

Garters aren't really immune to parasites, I haven't heard of them being immune to anything. Why would a canine eat salmon or trout? You have to freeze the fish anyways, you cant just keep it in the fridge. It'd go bad in a matter of days. I keep my fish in the freezer for 2 weeks before feeding it to my snakes... If I don't get a hold of it and eat it myself

Just saw the comment about some choosing to feed fresh (not frozen) fish, and ConcinnusMan saying most all fish is frozen. And yeah canines will eat all sorts of things, especially if you left the fish on the counter and turned your back for a moment and it became the "prize" of the day.

I suppose some parasites are more likely to infect specific animals, however if a parasite can infect salmon/trout/human/canine i would bet it can infect garter snakes. I agree that most fish bought at the grocery store was already frozen, but if it wasn't, using a home freezer won't drop the temps low enough to kill all parasites the same way an industrial freezer will. At least that is what I read regarding safe sushi, and seeing as how I don't want a massive tapeworm infection I believed it.

(PS very very cute garter babies.)

[kibakiba]

Thanks. They are my pride and joy.
They're my first litter of... anything actually (except hamsters), in my life.

I'd keep them if I had the room, but since I still live with my mom, she makes the rules and I can keep a max of 2. I guess I technically could disobey and keep them... But I'd run the risk of getting kicked out of having all of my snakes thrown out.

[ConcinusMan]

I didn't read the whole thread but this is something I wondered about. Salmon is a very very parasite ridden fish, I believe trout is too.

As a sushi lover I know the rule about that type of fish (or really most all fish) is have it frozen in an INDUSTRIAL freezer for at least 2 days to kill off all the parasites before eating raw. Raw salmon and trout can be very bad for canines as well due to all the worms and such.

Are garters immune to those parasites? I am thinking I would prefer frozen just to be on the safe side.

The kind of worms from fish, that infect reptiles and birds go through a larval stage in the guts of a fish or frog first. And yes, it's true. Just about any caught fish is going to have parasites. If you ever bother to gut a fish and look inside it's guts you'll find all kinds of worms. Even farmed or aquarium fish can have them. But the kind of worms you and your dog get are not the same thing that reptiles get. You and your dog can get infected simply by swallowing the egg of the right kind of parasite so raw fish, even without the guts can infect you since all it takes is the worm egg. This same egg would not likely effect a snake at all. Snakes get infected by swallowing whole fish or amphibians which have a larval worm inside them.

No, snakes are not immune to parasites although they can live long lives with parasites inside them. It's just that the kind of parasites that target reptiles, fish, and birds as the final host, are not the same ones that infect people and dogs. Your "massive tape worm infection" from eating raw fish, would be from swallowing the egg of a tapeworm that does not infect reptiles. The worm a reptile would get from the fish, is already hatched, in larval stage, and living inside the fishes guts.

At any rate, this is why I do not feed live fish to my snakes. Whole fish is great, but I always freeze solid for 60 days first. All fish meat from the store(no guts) could only contain eggs, and those eggs might infect you or your dog, but they won't infect a snake. It takes an intermediate host and larval stage worm to infect the snake. I am learning that even though the "fresh" fish at the grocery store may have froze on the way to market, it was only briefly, and not sufficiently frozen enough to make it safe.

It boils down to this. Human eating fish meat, or snake eating meat or whole fish, FREEZE AT 0 DEGREES F for at least 60 days and there is no chance that you or your snake will get infected by eating the raw fish. You can also feed your snakes cooked fish. Seriously. Just nuke it 'till it's cooked. That will kill parasites.