Chris' garters

[chris-uk]

wow i know you said it was a small area but how did you amputate it without exposing bone or hurting her more?

She had already done most of the work for me, if I'd left her another few minutes I think she would have ripped the end off on the her own. All I had to do was cut through the bone and ligaments that were still holding the end on, I used a pair of dissection scissors because a scalpel would have needed me to pin her down.
I suspect it hurt a little, but not enough to stop her chewing down the piece of salmon I gave her to keep her still while I did it. I'm pretty sure she didn't miss a chew.
It obviously did expose bone and a cross section of the inside of her tail, but at that point in her body the diameter of her tail is less than 1mm. It really is a tiny injury and without looking closely you wouldn't notice the tail isn't complete.

At the end of the day she had a section of tail which almost certainly had no feeling in it because the spinal cord was damaged, and definitely had no blood supply. I could have left it to fall off on its own, but leaving it added the risk that necrosis could spread infection into the wound. Removing the dead tissue was the sensible thing to do.

[chris-uk]

I have (mostly) a bunch of eating machines. The one I'm most happy with is my female blackneck, she ate like monster today. The male blackneck has continued to be choosy about when he eats, and is just about maintaining his weight at around 50g. My big girls seem to be unhappy with the amount I'm feeding them, but Lacci is already quite girthy and I don't want her crossing a line to become a fat girl. The infernalis are all stuffing their faces every feed.

'Tis the season to be growing.

[chris-uk]

H was a public holiday, and I spent most of it rearranging vivs. The two mental checkereds that I adopted via Greg, we're in a 90cm because I'd planned to move my other checkereds in there after quarantine had completed, but those two are too mental to live with Binky and Esk who are quite timid. So the mental pair have gone into a 60cm and the 90cm has come back downstairs for the boys. The other boys have done well out of the re-jig:




This is taken through the glass at one end looking up the length of the viv, Lipwig is exploring on the left. The heatmat is a the far end and there are an assortment of tubes and hides for the boys to use. I'm quite happy with the way it's looking.

[guidofatherof5]

Looks good.

[chris-uk]

Quick update on a couple of interesting behavioural observations.


Blacknecks (T. c. cyrtopsis)
My female blackneck has been unusually active over the last two weeks. She's out more frequently when I go into the room, and is out exploring most days around teatime (say 5-6pm). I've seen her systematically checking the mesh on top of the viv over the last few days. However, she is refusing food and hasn't eaten since 22 Sept (so 4 weeks without feeding now).

The male blackneck has been a picky eater over the summer. He was refusing food from 1 Sept until last week. He's not so active, but then again he lives in my office and I've not been working from home so much over the last 2-3 weeks so won't have seen him if he was out and about.

My thinking is that it's the time of year that they are both wanting to brumate and that female is looking for somewhere to go to brumate. Does anyone think this is likely?


San Francisco (T. s. tetrataenia)
He's had a real upturn in feeding over the last month or two, start of the summer he was a picky little one, but recently he's been consistent. Suspicious in that he's had an uptake in his feeding in the same time frame that the male radix he lives with has been refusing food...


The Tiddlers (male infernalis and female radix)
The two 2013 babies are doing well. Eating almost every feed (I've dropped feeding to every 3 days on average, although some days they will get a small feed two days in a row). Both are growing and I've nearly got enough sheds out of them to predict their shedding schedule, one more shed each and I'll have some better data.


On the whole I've started thinking about who to brumate and who to keep awake over the winter. I'll be brumating them in my garage, plan is to rig up a small "room" within the garage with a tubular heater on a thermostat set to keep the "room" above 5C.
So far I'm thinking that the ones that will get a proper long brumation will be: both radix, both cyrtopsis (they stopped eating over the winter last year and I think they need cooling so that they know when to start eating again in the spring), the two rescued checkereds, possibly my parietalis girl.
The Cuitzeos will have their heat turned off but won't be cooled in the garage. As they'll be in the house I'll see how they fair and play them a little by ear.
I won't be brumating: the two tiddlers, the 2012 infernalis, or my albino and normal checkered girl.

The jury is out on Nobby my parietalis, last week I found a small cyst under a belly scale. This is a scale that was damaged when she escaped two years ago and was caught by the cat. It's a long time for that to have caused the cyst, but possibly the bite/claw damage might have left a gap in the scale that is vulnerable to collecting crap. She'll only be brumating if the cyst is cleared up soon.

I've not decided on Twoflower (the San Fran). If he's eating well I want to keep him up and feeding, last year he was quite picky and he's not gained a lot of weight over the last year so the temptation is to keep him awake and feeding while the going is good.

[chris-uk]

A couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of my San Francisco Garter on Facebook. Fons commented about the orange on his belly and dorsal stripe being unusual. I didn't have good photos to show his belly until today. Rather than just sharing them on Facebook and Google+ I thought I'd pop them on the best garter snake forum in the world.

[guidofatherof5]

Awesome snake.

[Char361979]

Yes he is indeedy. Just wish I had more snakey time. Have two boys to run around after.

[BLUESIRTALIS]

Sweet Snake Chris!

[chris-uk]

Some of my boys. I've asked the same question on the Facebook Thamnophis group, but I expect better answers here ;-). So, how many boys and which species?



I suppose you guys have the advantage of my signature.