Quote:
Originally Posted by Kettennatter
Mine also just had some food. I wonder if garter snakes are smarter than other snakes: I can feed mine by hand. It just comes up to the hand and waits for food, and once food is produced, he simply takes it.
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Yes indeed they are.
Thamnophis (True Garter snakes) are a member of the Natricine snake group that includes the Water snake (nerodia), Storeria (Dekayi & Red Belly) and the European Natrix species.
The entire group bear live young, with the exclusion of the European Natrix species, Natrix are egg layers (oviparous)
Polymorphism exists in many of the species, resulting in selective breedings of snows, anerytristics, erythristics, albinos and "Flame" (bright red) with several west coast species displaying predominantly blue pigmentations.
Garter snakes are often described as "social" as they form orgies called "Breeding Balls" in the wild each spring, can often be found hiding together, and because they are so prolific, and vast in numbers have adapted well to sharing resources.
With this in mind, most experienced keepers have deemed it safe to cohab more than one per enclosure, however due to their insatiable feeding response, it is only safe if you are willing to seperate them at feeding time, otherwise food fights will break out.
They are some of the smallest of the colubrids, they are all highly inquisitve and always well aware of their surroundings.
Along with the standard hides & water, it is best to provide climbing, swimming and burrowing opportunities to keep the snake occupied.
They commonly will stare out the glass at you, I can get many to follow my finger along the glass without even trying hard.
Most will tolerate handling fairly well, but the females are far calmer than the males who will frequently musk and never stop squirming about.
Even wild females can be coaxed to eat from your hand sometimes without as much as touching her.
One day while I was photographing a large female in my back lot, I had spooked away her male counterpart, however while I took pictures of her, he returned to the scene three times to see what was going on.
What can I say..
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Maybe I should set up a structure outside his enclosure for him to play with, so I can get a few good shots. (He is watching me right now. I'm sure if snakes could laugh ...)
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