are wild snakes ok??

[Lee]

I have never kept a CB garter, I've kept WC all my life and had great success. They tame down with relative ease and I have yet to have parasite problems or dieoffs, except one when I was a kid because of rough handleing by a bunch of kids (she was also gravid). The 2 I currently have are doing GREAT, the female is 3ft and I've had her for 3 years now, and the male is ~2ft and I've had him nearly a month or so no issues. Readily accepting fish scented mice!

[Elliot]

From personal experience, I strongly disagree with the problems you mention in your post. However, I do recommend you isolate any wild caught speciman for several weeks from any others you may have, keep a close check on it for mites or signs of any parasite problems.

Allow your wild caught snake several days to adapt to a confined enviroment before feeding and you'll likely have no trouble.

Sid

I agree, I've never had a problem.

[stonyloam]

I like my WC snakes. I wouldn't worry too much, they are pretty tough little critters. The scars on a couple of mine are pretty good indication of that. I think the advice to keep the WC and CB snakes isolated is very good. I may be wrong (it has been known to happen), but I think the WC snakes would be much more tolerant of parasites, and also more adaptive to their environment with temperature control being much less critical than for CB (maybe just a basking light). I would think that if they will eat well and tolerate handling they should make a great pet. They can be released back in the wild. I have one gravid female (eastern) that I am planning to release after she has the babies (most of the babies too). Just keep looking and you should be able to find one. Good luck!

[ThamnophisManiac]

ok ill try that (PS....the stream is about half mile away from my house lol, not rigfht in my back yard)

[Lee]

ok ill try that (PS....the stream is about half mile away from my house lol, not rigfht in my back yard)

Mine is to, and I have to ride about a mile on each side, then it continues on the other side of the street aswell.