5 gal. tank?

[RedSidedSPR]

Two thoughts. First of all I am not sure they experience emotions like fear the way other animals (including humans do). It may be more of a preprogrammed automatic response but regardless it causes STRESS which is no doubt unpleasant for them. Likewise I do think they can experience pleasurable activities as well, chowing down on a good meal, lounging in the basking spot and enjoying the warmth, investigating the activities of the "giant" to see if they will offer food or provide some interesting interaction.

Is it "emotion" the way we sense it? I do not know but does that even matter? Pain/pleasure/stress/contentment is every bit as important, it defines the quality of life.

Regarding "instinct" vs. "emotion". Realize many (or possibly most) human emotions are based on instinct as well. The love for ones newborn baby (hormones surging), the feeling of protectiveness towards ones children, the bonding with sex partners (helpful in raising offspring successfully), the need to live in family groups and display forms of loyalty to associates. Those may seem like high and mighty "special" human attributes but many are based on INSTINCT and HORMONES and are designed to further our own survival and the survival of our offspring.

Studies have proven hormones (such as oxytocin) are responsible for much of the bonding that goes on among humans and other species. Introducing those hormones to animals that normally have low levels change their behavior instantly.

When comparing young puppies to snakes, keep in mind that snakes are expected to survive and have the basic mental faculties to do it right from the get go. Puppies, human babies, etc....are raised in family groups where the adults do most of the thinking for quite some time; they do not need to develop their intellect quite so rapidly, they can enjoy the luxury of being somewhat stupid as the family unit will protect them and provide for them.

I keep using the word: emotions, but what you said is what I (mostly) meant. Pleasure etc. are feeling and I've been saying that too.

[zooplan]

Back to the well of this thread I like to ask ( again?)
What size ( height, width, length ) is a five gallon tank.
It´s so unususal to type a terrarium by volume here.
My smallest Faunabox (plastic enclosure) is only 2 gallons, but my smallest glas terrariums for babies have 7.14 gallons. (19, 29,6, 50,8 are those for subadults and breeders)
I think expanse is more important than height.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

wow.... I just read this entire thread. I am going to try and not write a book here... what I can say is that to anyone who has been regularly contributing to this thread, there are points that I agree with just about everyone here. Especially Stefan.... you can always count on Stefan to tell it how it is and leave it!

Now lets get something straight here. I have worked with just about every commonly worked with non-venomous snake type that you could think of, I have used both enclosures and tubs/racks. My snakeroom is a hybrid mix of rack systems and enclosures. I like them both for varying reasons. Whether the container we are keeping a snake is a glass box, or a plastic box, it's still a box, and it's still OUR JOB to ensure the snake's well being. The moment we took snakes out of their natural environment and put them into a box we lose all hopes of trying to match what they would have in the wild.

I am very much a person of fact and one of my pet peeves is people who think their snakes love them, that their snakes are lonely or whatever... snakes couldn't care less about us.

BUT, we cannot generalize all snakes. I am a strong believer that not all snakes are suited for a rack system. And no one is ever going to change that opinion. Snakes are as different from one another as anything else. When you look at our hobby, it is EASY to see which snakes are best suited for the rack system. Because their populations have exploded in this hobby and are out of control. Ball pythons, corn snakes, bloods, western hognoses, I could name ten more, but there is really no need.

One thing I can say is that, you can definitely keep a garter snake in a tub. It is done all the time. Hell, I do it all the time. But the tubs I use are about 30x18, they have more floor space than a 20 gallon long, but are a quarter of the weight, are easier to clean and sure, I can't see through them all the way, but that doesn't matter. I would never keep a garter snake in a small tub where it would not even have the option to move about. One thing I see a lot of? Really obese checkered garter snakes. You see them all the time at shows. They are obese because they are fed a great big hulking rodent once a week and they are given a relatively small enclosure with a hide and a water dish. They spend most of their time under their hide digesting that huge meal, because it takes so long, the snake will not be active during this time because it has no need. In this case they will act just like a perfectly healthy corn snake and will live many years.

But what people are missing is that is NOT how garter snakes are meant to live. They will survive this way, but it's not optimal. Garter snakes will take prey every day in the wild if they can. They eat smaller, more frequent meals all of the time. They eat mostly things, such as worms and fish and frogs, that pass VERY quickly through the digestive tract. They will still eat mice and birds in the wild, but that's not going to make up the bulk of their diet. Because they are active foragers, they are out and about for a good portion of the day. They are designed to eat and digest things quickly, and they do not spend the majority of their time hiding. Maybe at night they are hiding, but during the day garter snakes are rarely sedentary, unless it's the heat of the day and it's uncomfortably hot, or if the weather is otherwise unfavorable. 9 times out of 10 the only time I find a garter snake under a rock is during the heat of the day, when the temps are higher than garters like.

I try to explain this to people all of the time, and they don't seem to understand it. Garter snakes WILL live and seemingly do great with a sedentary lifestyle, but generally, their body may not be as tip-top shape as they may appear. Garter snakes are not meant to live a sedentary lifestyle. They don't do it in the wild, they do not spend all of their time hiding, they spend it foraging and basking out in the open. And in captivity they will mirror this. Give a healthy garter snake a basking light and it will bask all day... it will crawl around and do whatever the hell garter snakes do. It will hardly hide, and if it does, it may still be exhibiting some fear towards the keeper. Even the most fearful garter snake will usually lose it's fear of the keeper eventually and will adopt the non-sedentary lifestyle.

Back to my enclosures. The tubs that I set up mirror the way that I would set up an enclosure. Multiple hides, a fake plant or two, and a water bowl that is large enough for the snake to fit in. Maybe a branch or something that they have to make the effort of crawling over top of now and then, it will give them better muscle tone. And the snakes that live in them are as well fed as a garter can be, and they are still active from the moment the sun starts coming in through the windows until it sets. Baby garter snakes don't seem to thrive nearly as well in tubs as adults and juveniles, for a few reasons. One, sliding the tub in and out scares them and will cause them not to feed. Two, baby garters react so strongly to having a light, it's incredible. Often the ONLY thing I need to change to get a finicky baby eating regularly is to provide a light. it doesn't even have to be a basking light with extra heat. If that desn't work, moving the baby in with a few other snakes that have a vigorous appetite can do the trick. For some reason, all of the other baby snakes eating around the "shy" one triggers a monkey-see monkey-do kind of effect, and he becomes more willing to eat, and to try new foods.

When I am at a show, I can always tell a garter snake that is being kept in a smaller enclosure without much to "do" other than eat a mouse once a week and then crawl back into a hide to digest it. All you have to do is pick them up. You can feel the difference in muscle tone and in how "alert" they are. They may be an outwardly healthy snake but it is easy to see through that when you are intimately familiar with the "little things" about garter snakes and similar active species. I see a similar effect with carpet pythons. Snakes are amazing in that they can adapt to just about any lifestyle if it means surviving. But not all snakes are suited to hide all of the time... garter snakes, even wild ones spend most of their time out in plain sight, and rely on their own vision and senses to spot a predator and RUN for cover. But they will wait for the danger to pass and come right back out. They even sneak peeks at you to see if you have left yet.

So often, I see keepers that make their snakes conform to what is easiest for the keeper, and what makes the keeper happiest, when not everything is taken into account as far as the snake is concerned. And then as long as the snake is eating, pooping, and hiding and seems outwardly OK, the mainstream consensus becomes that the bare minimum is acceptable. Ball pythons do SO well with nothing but a dark tub and a bowl of water. In some snakes, it is enough. In MOST snakes it is "enough", but "enough" and "optimal" are not the same.


Oh.... and to the original question... you can keep a baby garter snake NO PROBLEMS in a 5 gallon tank. You can even have your precious perfect thermal gradient. Anyone who says it can't be done, simply hasn't tried, or tried and failed miserably. I have a 5 gallon tank that has reared MANY healthy babies.

I saw ringnecks were mentioned. Not really a good choice... their main diet is snakes!

[ConcinusMan]

EDIT: Shannon posted before I hit the submit button. Keep that in mind.

The standard "5 gallon" size glass aquarium is approximately 40 X 20 cm floor space (16X8X10 inches) and it's actually 5.5 gallons. There are of course non-standard and custom sizes, especially if they're not made of glass.

That is obviously enough room for a very small snake. The main issue I have is unless you're keeping it in a heated snake room and using heat tape or heat pad on a very small area of one end, it's difficult to adequately heat the air inside the tank, say, with a ceramic heat emitter or basking bulb, while still maintaining a low enough air temperature on the cool end. It is true that garters do not have exacting temperature requirements, so people take this too far and do not provide enough heating, have too much fluctuation or overheat their garters. There are more temperatures to consider than most people even think of. There's the night time low,(which should be tank-wide) daytime high cool end, daytime high warm end, and there should be enough room for a gradient in between.

This is where plants, logs, hides and other things help to create a range of comfort zones. They are not just "decoration" that the snakes can live without, like some people tend to think.

I just prefer to create and environment that allows for the snake to thermoregulate and move about like it does in nature. Then along comes people and they think they can do it better by sticking them in a tub with heat tape. They think they know better than nature. This is not how garter snakes live normal lives. BP's and retics live like this naturally and people tend to apply it garter snakes as well. Garter snakes are not sedentary. They actively move about even if it's for no particular reason. I've seen the difference in appetite and attitude when you take a garter out of a dang shoebox and give it room, a wide gradient, landscaping, and "natural" lighting. Yes, they do indeed seem "happier" in such a setup.

[ConcinusMan]

They even sneak peeks at you to see if you have left yet.

See 0:48 to 1:05



I've been out there and just sat still and watched the snakes. They are zipping around, moving about, and very, very active. They really a lot of the time just seem to be "frolicking". They're not hunting, they're not moving because they are hot or cold and yet there they are, moving about, climbing, watching, etc. The thing I like about watching them is that sometimes they will be watching me, get curious and actually approach.

[infernalis]

Just wanted to add to your post Richard, It's way easier to overheat a garter snake than underheat one.

I dislike talking about someone who is absent and cannot speak for themselves, so I'll speak generically.

There is a member here who found that out the hard way, she let direct sunlight irradiate a closed box containing baby garter snakes, they were all dead in mere minutes.

On the other side of that coin is the fact that sometimes we have "chilly spells" here in New York that can last for a week or more, and the local Garters do just fine.

I'm not challenging what you said in any way, just tossing out a personal observation at what seems like a relevant moment.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

It's really, really hard to underheat a garter snake in the average home. It's very easy to overheat them. They are NOT FOND of being too warm.

[ConcinusMan]

Agreed. Overheating, even if only slightly but consistently, seems to be a more common mistake when keeping garters in captivity. Even if all other husbandry factors are correct, heat stress is a killer. Respiratory infections and related immune deficiencies can be directly linked to overheating, not just dampness, dirty tanks and underheating. Any reptile vet that knows what he is talking about will tell you that many case of respiratory infection can be linked to keeping a snake too warm. This may seem contradictory since most cases call for more warmth or 24/7 elevated temps to support the immune system during an infection. Garters are naturally well adapted to cooler and less than ideal seasons. In places where heat is a problem frequently, you will not find garters thriving. Populations are stable and garters thrive even in years that are cooler than ideal.

This one of the reasons that I think it's best to have an enclosure that's big enough to ideally create a small area that is as high as 88 or even 90 degrees but also make sure that the snake can easily find a spot that is around 70 degrees during the day. That's difficult to accomplish as enclosures get smaller. Simply using heat tape and/or undertank heater isn't enough IMO. A snake that is trying to raise it's core temp will sit on a surface that is too warm, "cook" it's babies and maybe even get burned and still not accomplish raising it's core temp enough.

I'm not saying that the way I do things is the absolute only "right" way to do things but there is a lot of years, and a lot trial and error behind my recommendation of how to set up a garter enclosure. The smaller the snakes, the more relevant and higher success rate I have when I do things this way.

This is not just about aesthetics. The snakes just seem to thrive this way. And why wouldn't they? This is how they live and thermoregulate in the wild. To me this is minimal setup. Even bigger with a wider range microclimates certainly couldn't hurt.

[RedSidedSPR]

Thank you Shannon. You just backed up what I (we.. some of us) have been saying. They do need exercise, they are active, more so than other snakes, they need room. Nicely put.

Richard, I agree with the "to small for heat gradient" stuff. I am not likely to put anything in there after all. Partly because of heat and just because: what's the point? Buy a bigger tank if you can.
But I do agree that they CAN live in a small tank, even thrive, if you do it right.

Also I, and some others, said awhile back, "they have emotions", I don't really think they have EMOTIONS, but they do have some feelings. Fear, curiosity etc.

I also have nothing against tubs, as long as you still make it a nice habitat. But I do think enclosures are a better choice. For both the snake and the keeper.

I do respect everyone's opinion, but I especially respect and agree with what Richard, Shannon, Wayne, and anyone else who have been saying what they have. I don't think garters should be expected to live like less active snakes in small enclosures etc.

Now... continue arguing.

I saw ringnecks were mentioned. Not really a good choice... their main diet is snakes!

In captivity they can live off of worms alone... at least that's what I've heard. I only brought that up because I have a lot of them at near my house.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

In captivity they can live off of worms alone... at least that's what I've heard. I only brought that up because I have a lot of them at near my house.

I have tried a few adult ringnecks on worms... never could get them to eat them. I did find 4 eggs once in a trash pile, and they hatched into 4 beautiful baby ringnecks. I fed them worms a few times before releasing them in the area they were laid (but not in trash lol) Maybe if they are started on worms it would work... but I think the adults, having already tasted snakes... well, you know what I mean!