HOW and WHY

[ssssnakeluvr]

been hooked on garters all my life.....even attended a few meetings of thamnophis anonymous....didn't help......still addicted

[anji1971]

I chased snakes around as a kid, but was never allowed to keep any. Probably a good thing, since I wouldn't have had a clue how to take care of them back then.
My kids found one at my mom's house, and we decided to try to keep her.
AND........as most of you can relate to, it never stops from there.

[jitami]

Here's my post from the other thread...

Sounds soooo familiar. I was a tomboy growing up. My cousins and all the neighborhood boys were always catching something! I don't think I ever caught anything bigger than a "blue-belly" lizard, but was always holding some snake or lizard for the boys.

Then a little role reversal. Met my husband, became room mates with another couple and both my (then boyfriend) husband and the other guy were laughingly afraid of snakes. The other guy would scream like a girl and my husband just didn't care for them... said they smell... sigh. So I never pursued snake ownership.

Skip forward a decade or so and I have boys of my own, dancing around the front yard with 4 or 5 other boys, passing this cute little garter snake around. "MOM, can we keep it?" All the while they're dropping it, it's flailing wildly, musking, generally very unhappy. I rescued the poor thing, now named Sly, from the tortuous little boys and it's lived a life of luxury ever sense.

Way back then I got some great advice from the kingsnake forum and KitKat in particular. I had read or heard that their lifespan was about 6 years. So, skip forward almost 6 years and it's time for Sly to come out of his self induced brumation and he's staying hidden. I get a little stressed, thinking, this could be it. Finally get up the nerve to check on him and he's fine, but that little scare reminded me of how much I've come to enjoy the little guy and how much I would miss him if he were gone

Soooo, I take a couple new pics, get on kingsnake and post an update on my little man and soon learn that a 10 year lifespan is common in captivity In the meantime someone has pointed me this direction and I quickly discover that I'm going to *need* more garter snakes in my life in the near future.

Update since then... we added two captive bred babies, kept a wild girl who showed up in my driveway, and I have plans to add three captive babies this spring. That will probably be it for a couple years... until those three beautiful babies make beautiful babies.