My first garter

[kibakiba]

She's very beautiful!

[Steveo]

Just a quick update on this girl, she's adjusting well to captivity and eating like a horse. I'm not convinced she's gravid because she's thickest around mid-body, but I bought a scale and will weigh her periodically to be sure. Right now she's 126g.

[Steveo]

I weighed this girl again last night and she came in at 162g. I think she still had some food in her gut from Thursday's feeding but that's some pretty rapid weight gain, no?

[Steveo]

160g and she refused rat pups Tuesday and nightcrawlers today. I didn't think she was looking chunky in the back half, but the pictures say otherwise. DSC_0031.jpgDSC_0034.jpg

Please excuse the cardboard box, I just needed something with an open top that she couldn't get out of right away

[ProXimuS]

Sounds/looks like possible babies in the future How exciting!

[katach]

I would agree. She does look a little.....girthy in the lower portion. Good luck! She is a beauty for sure!

[Dan72]

Steve just curious, I thought you had mentioned in an earlier post that you had hoped she would be gravid. If the gal is what are your plans for the litter? She is a keeper for you correct, not a catch and release?

[Steveo]

If she is gravid I'll probably keep a few little ones and let mama and the rest go. She looks to be pretty old but if she's still young enough to reproduce then she'd be better off back where I found her. It was probably a mistake to keep her but she's my first garter and the only snake I've ever had that will come out of hiding and put her head in my hand.

On the other hand, I know vagrans are not widely kept. If someone wanted some or wanted to trade, I'd give them up to keep others from being collected. As I said earlier, she came from a place with a very healthy population so I would not have kept her if I didn't think it would be ok.

[Dan72]

Sure, completly understand. I have what I hope is a gravid radix female from my yard. Found an albino radix in late March and even though its better chances of winning powerball I'm hoping I have the mother of the albino and she does it again. If that ends up being the case then it opens pandoras box on keeping her. But if this beuatiful girl has a healthy litter of radix but no albino and nothing to prove that she is het for it then they're all going back to the yard. I kind of feel bad about spoiling her for months and then tossing her back to deal with nature, but with so many cool garters out there and coming from CB backgrounds I can't really justify keeping her. Time will tell. That is pretty nice thinking about sharing your litter with those that want however, even though the mothers are WC, I guess the litters could be seen as CB.....

[Dan72]

Seeing as how you work with the snakes like you do, what do you consider a healthy population to be? The reason I ask is this if I ended up keeping this female after she gave birth to the litter. Guessing because I have no way of knowing, that she is 1 of ? healthy females of breeding age in my area of garters. If she was 1 of 40 does that disturb the natural order of things? Not as much I'm sure as if she were 1 of 6. So what would a healthy population be?