Garter snake food - fish questions.

[krystalirelan@southslope.]

try your smaller independant pet stores. these will usually sell live pinkies. Or you could raise your own. we did this for a while when we 1st got our corns, it's fun and fairly cheap but mice tend to eat thier young and our dog teanded to eat the mice so we had to stop.

[KITKAT]

I get my frozen pinkies at the monthly herp show in town.

[Lee]

try your smaller independant pet stores. these will usually sell live pinkies. Or you could raise your own. we did this for a while when we 1st got our corns, it's fun and fairly cheap but mice tend to eat thier young and our dog teanded to eat the mice so we had to stop.

Found one that has live pinkie rats/mice, in the mall of all places.. Breeding is not an option, no point in breeding something that I don't want near my house for a single snake lol. Last year my snake got some wild mice that had come into our shed.

KitKat, he likes live prey. I can get frozen all day for cheap, but he's a wild snake and I think he enjoys live more.

[drache]

Definitely never feed dead fish from the market without freezing it first. I'm fairly certain what killed one of my baby snakes a few years ago. It was during one of those weather disasters that befall us at times and there were no live feeders to be gotten. So I tried scenting pinkies with some store bought fish and the only snake that went for it, ended up dead within a day.
Not all my snakes like night crawlers, which are the only earthworms we get here, other than red wigglers. My Plains Garter goes nuts over them, but both of my adult red-sided Garters prefer mice. One of them will not take a worm even when hungry.

[mark67123]

Where can you get these vit. supplements they talk about?

Link for vitamin/supplement supplier:
Livefood UK Vetark Products

I currently use Nutrobal directly on food (not all the time though) and a product similar to the BSP drops in the water now and then.
According to my vet, too much vitamin supplementation can be worse than none at all so I keep it pretty low.

[jasuncle1972]

Have you considered bait minnows , in my area (michigan ) they're 1.oo per 12.

[drache]

I get bait minnows 10 for a buck, but they're crappy, sick fish and possibly laden with parasites.

[KITKAT]

That's unfortunate.

My local bait store has nice lively healthy fish. I freeze and thaw them at least 24 hours before feeding, which will eliminate or greatly reduce parasites.

[drache]

why have I never thought to do that with minnows?
blind spot, I guess.

[stonyloam]

Hi Lee: I tried native fish (bluegills) a long time ago and found that you have to be careful with them because they can be very aggressive toward each other, so you may have to limit the population and keep fish of approximately the same size. You may have to add one or two at a time to see how they get along. You might try a small bullhead or two, the small ones are pretty interesting. There are some pretty cool little darters that live in lakes under rocks in the shallows that might do well, stone cats too, and a school of fathead minnows might give you a food supply for you snake too. You have to be careful with crayfish, they will grab sleeping fish for a late night snack. Anyway good luck.