Total nutrition for my garters

[boyer45]

I have read a lot of great posts about what a good diet is for garters but I still have questions. I also thought (maybe?) a new thread would be helpful to get all this info in one place. I have read a couple articles(online) about mice being complete nutrition but I have also read here that mice are just a part and should be supplemented with fish and worms.What is the most complete diet?When should I use calcium or vitamins and how do I mix the right amount?How do I administer them? Do I put it on their food or in their water? Thanks in advance for your help!!

[joeysgreen]

The short answer to this question is that we do not know the complete nutritional requirements for garter snakes, or any reptile for that matter. What we do know is what they eat in the wild. In captivity we do our best to recreate this natural diet, whilst making educated guesses to avoid pitfalls (ex. parasites, thiamine deficiency) and to allow compromises (like frozen/thawed mice for convenience).

A good captive diet should not need any vitamin/mineral supplementation. If we know our prey items a likely lacking, then we may want to supplement. For instance, if your garter snake will only eat earthworms, then supplementing calcium might be warranted.


Whole body, vertebrate prey (aka mice, frogs, fish etc) has everything that a vertebrate needs to survive, thus passing it on to the predator. The question is if your predator is able to obtain the nutrition from said prey item. From what we can see, there is no problem with garter snakes digesting and absorbing the nutrients from mice; but this is an anecdotal assumption. A note on neonatal rodents is that because their skeleton is not yet calcified, they may be a calcium deficient diet. Be sure that most of the pinkies offered have a full belly of milk.

There is definitely more to add to this thread to make a complete summary, but this is a start.

[guidofatherof5]

The short answer to this question is that we do not know the complete nutritional requirements for garter snakes, or any reptile for that matter. What we do know is what they eat in the wild. In captivity we do our best to recreate this natural diet, whilst making educated guesses to avoid pitfalls (ex. parasites, thiamine deficiency) and to allow compromises (like frozen/thawed mice for convenience).

A good captive diet should not need any vitamin/mineral supplementation. If we know our prey items a likely lacking, then we may want to supplement. For instance, if your garter snake will only eat earthworms, then supplementing calcium might be warranted.


Whole body, vertebrate prey (aka mice, frogs, fish etc) has everything that a vertebrate needs to survive, thus passing it on to the predator. The question is if your predator is able to obtain the nutrition from said prey item. From what we can see, there is no problem with garter snakes digesting and absorbing the nutrients from mice; but this is an anecdotal assumption. A note on neonatal rodents is that because their skeleton is not yet calcified, they may be a calcium deficient diet. Be sure that most of the pinkies offered have a full belly of milk.

There is definitely more to add to this thread to make a complete summary, but this is a start.

Well put.
Variety offers the best each food has to offer. Much is a guessing game on our part. Nature is really the expert when it comes to what is best, there's a lot we don't know about.

[BUSHSNAKE]

Ive been breeding rodents for feeders for many years and you learn that the diet if your food that your feeding your snake is also VERY important. What goes into the food item goes into your snake

[Rushthezeppelin]

Ive been breeding rodents for feeders for many years and you learn that the diet if your food that your feeding your snake is also VERY important. What goes into the food item goes into your snake

That's what make's nightcrawlers so tricky. They are WC most of the time and you could have drastically varying levels of certain minerals in any given soil you find them in. So you never quite know the mineral content, although you can usually bet that they are packed with vitamins.

[BUSHSNAKE]

That's what make's nightcrawlers so tricky. They are WC most of the time and you could have drastically varying levels of certain minerals in any given soil you find them in. So you never quite know the mineral content, although you can usually bet that they are packed with vitamins.

Maybe gut loading them before offering them as food can be somthing good to get into.

[Rushthezeppelin]

I wonder how you would gutload them, and what with though....hmmm.

[AntTheDestroyer]

Maybe gut loading them before offering them as food can be somthing good to get into.

What would you gut load them with? Garden soil or specific compost mixture? I think parasites would be a concern. I was under the impression mice was considered a complete nutritional meal.

[AntTheDestroyer]

I wonder how you would gutload them, and what with though....hmmm.

Jinx

[BUSHSNAKE]

I wonder how you would gutload them, and what with though....hmmm.

Im sure you can find the answers with a little research