Draco Update

[bigsnakegirl78]

I haven't been on here in a long time, and decided maybe I should try to start coming back on here.

I posted my male albino checkered garter here when I first got him, but he's grown up a lot since then. I got him October of 2013, and he was just a tiny little baby then, didn't even register on my scale. Now he's 1'-1.5' long and 23 grams as of today. I'm still wondering if the scale wasn't wrong, or he wasn't empty, though...he only weighed 17 grams last month and has only been putting on 1 gram a month for awhile now.

Here he is 2 months after I got him.


Here he is from a month or two ago.


He eats mostly well, but since I started offering him bedding deep enough to burrow in, he no longer hunts down his mice and it's easier to spook him off of food.

When do male checkered garters tend stop growing, or slow down growth to barely noticeable levels?

Here a few more of my favorite photos.





Here's a recent one one of him buried under his humid hide.

[guidofatherof5]

Nice T.marcianus

[bigsnakegirl78]

Thanks! He's a little stinker, though. I suppose that's true for most garters. haha

[bigsnakegirl78]

Well I figured out the discrepancy! Turns out I didn't tare off the lid to the container I had him in. Whoops. He actually weighs 18 grams, so he's gained another gram.

The pinkies also barely leave a bulge anymore, so I'm thinking of starting to feed him two pinkies (if he'll eat both) with his next feeding (which I think is tomorrow). I don't think he's ready to move up a whole size, and I've heard there's a risk of impaction feeding haired rodents.

[guidofatherof5]

The impaction worry is a real one. Lost a couple very special snakes due to it.

[d_virginiana]

Agree with Steve. The only one of my snakes that gets anything with hair on it is the python. I just don't think garters are designed to deal with fur.

[bigsnakegirl78]

Alright, good to know! I'l be sure to stick to multiple mice then. I'm thinking in the future I may try to mix fish back into his diet and give him fish every other feeding. I'm just worried that would cause him to go off mice. :/ It took me 3 months to switch him to mice when he first came here, I don't want to do that again. lol

Anyways, as far as feeding him two pinkies, he took both of them with gusto! Laid them out one behind the other, with one close to his head where he was poking it out of the bedding. He pulled himself down into his burrow as I set them in his enclosure, but once I walked away he went for them. I watched from a gap between the stuff we have in front of his tank, so he wouldn't notice me watching him. :P

[Albert Clark]

The impaction worry is a real one. Lost a couple very special snakes due to it.

Thank you for that info, I never heard of that in all my years of owning garters. Now that I think back to the inexplicable deaths I've incurred of certain garters here is a new potential cause! I always feed pinks and mice with hair up until now. Wow.

[Albert Clark]

Hey bigsnakegirl78, snakes have what is known as "indeterminate growth". So they never stop growing but once they reach maturity the growth rate slows down. It slows even more the older they get but never really ceases. Peace.

[Zdravko092368]

I always wondered about the exact amount of risk with haired rodents, if you fed them a fuzzy or two(still wet from thawing in water perhaps?) and had them wash it down with worms would that reduce the risk, since the most important thing to prevent impaction is usually good hydration. I understand playing it safe but my female currently could eat 4 pinkies a day if I let her, they are like lil gummy bears to her lol.