Greetings from Massachusetts.

[GaiusIuliusTabernarius]

Four paws natures reptile vitaspray. I read that an earthworm diet is somewhat lacking in certain vitamins and that something like this came highly recommended. It was only 7 dollars.

[kibakiba]

That is a lot of money for a spray. I get my calcium supplement, the thing that is "lacking" in worm diets, for 2 dollars for 3 ounces. Honestly, if you get a species that naturally eats earthworms, it doesn't need too much of a supplement. If you choose to keep your worms and gutload them, use a bit of the ultrafine powder in their food (sprinkling it at the top) and they'll go crazy for it. For every 12-24 worms, I use one eighth of a teaspoon of the calcium. That alone is enough to make up for the lack of calcium in them. If you don't want to gut load, once a week you can dip the behind of the worm into the powder and feed it to the snake. It doesn't need to he a lot, just a slight dusting works great.

[GaiusIuliusTabernarius]

I'm not entirely certain but I think the ones that live around here are either eastern or common snakes, they are cream colored on the bottom, and brown with greenish/cream checkered and striped patterns on the back... and based on my past experience with them they primarily eat slugs and earth worms, as that's pretty much all there is in my backyard and I saw them regurgitate a few times. They were also quite small, less than a foot in length at the most.

Of course I when I catch one I'll have pictures, It shouldn't take too long, I see them all the time when I weed my garden.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Ahhhh, I was afraid you were going to say it was the four paws product... I hate to tell you this, but that stuff is pretty much worthless. I always suspected it, but it was confirmed when I overheard a four paws representative once say "people will buy anything with a picture of their pet on it" when confronted about the uselessness of their iguana vita-spray. (its a spray that you are supposed to spray onto the lizard itself... but it's pointless since they don't absorb vitamins into the skin). I work in pet supply so I see the kinds of devious things that companies do/say just to get someone to buy their product. I won't buy anything made by four paws to this day because of it. It's not even just their reptile products, half of their dog, cat, and small animal products are overpriced useless things that people 1) don't actually need 2) can buy elsewhere, without the additional markup that is added on because it says on the package it is for a guinea pig specifically. I would say the major concern with a spray vitamin is going to be this... it's a liquid so the vitamins are going to be very temperature sensitive, even more than they already are. How long the product sat in the warehouse, on the store shelf, and what kinds of temps the product was exposed to in transit can cause the delicate molecules that are vitamins to break down or to be altered into forms that are not usable. It's the same reason that using vitamins by their expiration date is important... they don't have a long shelf life, vitamins are delicate molecules. There are probably other liquid vitamin supplements out there that are good, but I am willing to bet they have a very short life and need to be refridgerated. BUT anyways... enough boring rambling about four paws....

congrats on a new pet snake!!!

[GaiusIuliusTabernarius]

ah... evidently the article I was reading was bogus then... well it wasn't that expensive.

I'm not sure I deserve the congratulations quite yet, I'm still trying to find my pet. For some reason they seemed to be more numerous when I was a kid. Then again my eye sight was better and I had a longer attention span to devote to scanning grass for signs of movement. I was like my neighborhoods answer to the crocodile hunter when I was a kid... now I'd be thrilled if I could just find one.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

I love your signature.... same way I was as a kid! I always had a bucket of snakes....

[GaiusIuliusTabernarius]

Thanks, the funny thing is one of my mother's friends still calls me that. I guess he'll have a new reason to now.

[kibakiba]

I was always carrying some terrified amphibian or snake (I couldn't tell the difference as a kid) and showing it to my dad, who wanted nothing to do with animals... and going "look dad, a snake!" I did this even if I was carrying a frog or salamander...

[GaiusIuliusTabernarius]

Never had amphibians where I lived, if it wasn't a snake it was a grass hopper or a praying mantis. sometimes large ants.

[Didymus20X6]

Some of the kids I met over the summer call me Snake Man. That's because I like to take Little Dude to do presentations at summer education programs. I teach them basic stuff about snakes in general and garter snakes in particular, but mostly just try to show them that these creatures are harmless, beautiful, and deserving of our respect. (That way, when they see garters in their yards when they grow up, they'll be less inclined to chop their heads off with a hoe, as is the popular treatment of them around here).