How Often to Feed a Baby Garter Snake

The Vii Rules of Raising Baby Garter Snakes

Baby garter snakes have different intendance requirements than other colubrids. They can trip yous up if y'all're not gear up for them, but they're not that difficult one time yous know them.

Few people are crazy plenty to breed garter snakes and raise the babies, but more than than a few of the states have unexpectedly been handed the task of raising a large number of babe garter snakes. We may, for example, have been handed a "rescued" garter serpent that turns out to be very, very pregnant, which then surprises yous one twenty-four hours with dozens of her offspring slithering around her muzzle.

Oh great, you think. Now what? Suddenly you're faced with having to expect after a whole bunch of petty snakes. The sheer number of them can make that a very intimidating situation. And raising baby garter snakes isn't the same as raising a litter or two of corn snakes. Garter snakes don't eat mice, you lot think, and they're too small for pinkies anyway — how are y'all going to feed them all?

Taking care of an adult garter snake, especially if information technology's been trained to eat mice, isn't really whatsoever different from taking care of your average colubrid. But baby garter snakes are unlike. Their special requirements can trip you up if you're not ready for them, only they're not that difficult once you lot know them. I call them the Vii Rules of Raising Baby Garter Snakes, and I'll share them with y'all here.

Dominion #1: Garter snakes shed immediately after nascence. The books say that baby snakes shed seven to 10 days afterward nascence, after which you can begin offering them food. (Even Perlowin's book on garter snakes states this as a fact.) The showtime time I had a litter of babe garters, I didn't see the birth itself, so I waited. And waited. Information technology never came. The adjacent year I was able to lookout man the whole gory process, and, to my surprise, they were shedding within minutes of breaking out of the nascency sac. The shed skins were and then thin, they practically disintegrated under the traffic of 42 baby snakes (and ane adult); if I hadn't seen them shed, I'd never have known they'd done information technology. So if you're waiting for them to shed before offering them nutrient, don't.

Rule #2: House baby garter snakes in pocket-size groups. The conventional wisdom is to house baby snakes individually in small containers. If you're facing a big litter of garter snakes — every bit I did in 2002 with my litter of 42 cherry-sided garters — that'due south an impractical number of plastic boxes. Fortunately, housing them together isn't a problem. Non simply is information technology more convenient, but baby garter snakes accept been observed to exist calmer when housed in groups. (Garter snakes amass in the wild, especially during hibernation, and then we shouldn't presume that they're completely asocial.) I split up my litter of 42 among iv five-gallon tanks: 10 to 11 snakes each. They were small enough at the fourth dimension that information technology worked; over time I managed to sell a few, then I concluded upward able to accept fewer snakes per muzzle as they got larger.

They should still exist fed individually, though; more nigh that later.

Dominion #3: Dessication is a serious risk on hot days. Dessication can be fatal on hot, dry out days, so you desire to be able to have a moist spot. The entire cage shouldn't be moist, considering that encourages blister disease. But you can keep a dodder of moistened sphagnum moss in one corner of an otherwise dry cage to forestall the snakes from drying out.

Rule #4: Getting babe garter snakes to outset eating is difficult. I've had some troubles getting the trivial monsters to start eating, and I think there were several reasons for this. For one affair, they're as well small for some of the more than conveniently acquired food items, such as pinky mice or bait-store nightcrawlers. Some of them — my wandering garter snakes, for case — looked skilful and plump at nativity, and weren't hungry, probably due to retained egg yolk. Others had trouble recognizing what they were being offered as food, either because it didn't movement (they responded to live fish merely ignored fish fillet and cut-up worms) or because they wanted to eat worms rather than fish or vice versa. Some baby garter snakes would consume anything I gave them; some were fussy; some refused everything I could find.

Which brings me to Rule #five: Using "natural" garter snake food is hard. When people recollect about garter snake nutrient, they think fish, worms and frogs. We'll go out aside frogs (i.e., tadpoles) for this article and focus on fish and worms, which are more than easily obtained. Whole, alive fish tin exist expensive and full of parasites; yous need a lot of them and it'southward difficult to control how many each snake eats if yous're offer a dish full of fish to a muzzle full of snakes. Whole worms are too large for baby garters if you buy the big nightcrawlers from bait stores; small worms you collect out of the garden (or off the street when it rains — though that can't exist healthy, tin it?) work just fine, and infant garters seem to love them, merely it's difficult to get enough of them. And, every bit I mentioned earlier, baby garters don't e'er recognize worm pieces or fish fillet as nutrient.

A snake being fed fish or worms needs to eat a lot: every bit often as twice a week. If y'all take a full litter (ii dozen babies, for example), exercise the math and brace yourself for how many yous're going to demand. Assume two to 4 fish or worms per feeding, per snake, and assume two feedings per calendar week, and yous're looking at around 100 to 200 live fish or minor worms each calendar week. That's a lot of coin spent at Big Al's or time spent digging in the garden!

At present y'all know why nobody breeds garter snakes.

Rule #half dozen: Getting them on pinkies is easier than y'all think. Fortunately, worms and fish aren't your just option. As you may know, I advocate converting garter snakes to a mouse-based diet. It'southward not simply easier and cheaper, but it'southward easier to keep them good for you and growing. I originally thought you had to feed babies fish and worms until they were large plenty to accept scented pinky parts, and that's how I proceeded in 2001 and 2002, when I had large litters to bargain with. I lost a lot of babies before they were converted to mice: some to dessication, some to the simple fact that I couldn't give them enough food. Only once I got them onto mice, they were fine; the flim-flam was to get them to that signal.

But in 2003, when I had caused a handful of baby garters, I tried something new: feeding them very modest pinky parts right from the outset. And it worked! Non only that, but some of them were more enthusiastic nearly mouse parts than they ever were well-nigh fish or worms! I told a friend about this, and she tried it with a litter of garter snakes in 2004; within two weeks, most of them were eating mouse parts.

Not every garter ophidian will eat mice; I've known some adults that would resist everything merely live fish, for example. Only if you tin can get them on mice correct from the outset, it volition be easier for you and healthier for the snakes.

Rule #7: Feed them separately but be efficient about it. Even if you lot house them together, you lot need to feed them separately for all the usual reasons: nutrient fights and accidental cannibalism, one snake hogging all the food (especially with live fish, where 1 greedy snake can eat them all before the other ones notice). But when you have a couple dozen snakes, feeding them individually tin mean that either you lot spend all solar day feeding them or y'all spend a lot of money on a bunch of feeding containers.

Jennifer and I plant a way to speed upward the process by using deli-cup containers. We ready out plenty containers for the snakes of one cage and put the food in each (past this indicate, usually a one-half pinky), and and so took the snakes out of the cage and put one in each container. Before long the snakes were well used to this procedure and frequently had clamped down on their food before Jennifer closed the lid on them. While they fed, we cleaned their muzzle. By the time that was washed, some were already finished and prepare to go back in. Repeat for each muzzle. It's more than labour-intensive than simply dropping a plateful of food in each cage, but it's definitely meliorate for the snakes: information technology'due south safer and makes certain every snake has a shot at the food. Feeding individually is always going to be fourth dimension-consuming, but we've been able to make information technology about as quick and efficient as nosotros can, I call back.

Unfortunately, by the time I'd figured all of this out, we had well-nigh completely run out of baby garter snakes to experiment on: each of our breeding pairs lost one fellow member due to former age or disease, so nosotros haven't had a fresh litter of garter snakes since 2002. Just we're raising up a trio of checky garter snakes at the moment; the females are withal pretty small, and I don't think they'll be prepare to breed by adjacent year, merely with any luck I'll be able to test the Seven Rules on a couple of new litters in 2008.

Showtime published in Chorus 22, no. 5 (May 2006).

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