Please help with my snake

[OCMotoDad]

Hi Guys! I found this site while searching the internet on Garter Snake info about how to identify and take care of them. Im pretty darn certain that this is a Garter (not the same shaped head like a rattler) and my kids walked in the house with him saying that they caught him. After my initial shock, and seeing them holding this docile creature, they begged me to keep it.

Im normally a fish guy and don't know much about snakes. So we went out and bought a snake kit, but this guy doesn't seem to want to eat, maybe it hasn't been long enough since his last meal. Ive offered him fish as well as frozen mice (heated up in hot water).

Can anyone tell me what type of Garter this is? We live in Orange County, which is in Southern California, and back up to a wilderness area that has lots of mountain lions and rattle snakes and deer.

Any help or advice you can give will be greatly appreciated. I did attach some pics. We have also only had him for 2 days.

Thank You!

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[infernalis]

seems that your attached images did not upload.

[guidofatherof5]

Welcome. Have you tried night crawlers?
Here's a link to the forum care sheet. Check out the other link. Maybe you can identify your snake from there.
Garter Snake Forum - Garter Caresheet

Identifying California Gartersnakes

[Mommy2many]

Welcome! Cannot see your pictures. Please try uploading again.

[OCMotoDad]

IMG_0403.jpgIMG_0404.jpgIMG_0424.jpgIMG_0436.jpg

Hopefully these ones work. I did finally get her to eat last night. She polished off 2 of the small mice from the frozen mice packages at PetSmart (box of 6, so they were small mice). But I definitely am still very interested in trying to positively identify her.

[infernalis]

That looks like a pine snake to me.

sSnakeSs.com - our sister forum.

[indigoman]

Looks like a California king snake to me, very nice.

[OCMotoDad]

So I joined the other forum as well, and I did have someone else tell me that it was a king as well. Is there a way to positively identify this thing? I want to make sure that I take care of it correctly, and actually know what I have.

[indigoman]

California king snake striped morph , coastal color phase.

[OCMotoDad]

Indigoman....so when you saw morph, is that why there is the solid yellow line on top, but she has a more camoflauge style pattern on the side? Does morph mean that there was inter species breeding? Please forgive my questions if they sound dumb, but I'm 100% new to this. I also want to make sure that everything is ok to have with my kids and for handling her, as well as providing the right living environment.