My new garter(s)

[mikem]

Picked up a pair of these a few weeks ago. Female is pictured. She just shed a couple days ago. Male looks identical, but a bit smaller. Both are feeding on guppies/tilapia pieces at the moment. Trying to get them switched over to rodents. Feeding time is tomorrow and I plan on changing their bedding to newspaper. Don't really care for the aspen. Anywho, thanks for looking!

[EasternGirl]

You can alternate between the tilapia and frozen/thawed pinkies...that would give them a more rounded diet. Add some worms in too now and again if you can. There are some other options for bedding too other than aspen and newspaper that I can suggest if you are interested. Laying newspaper or paper towels down to feed on is a good idea though...don't want to feed on the aspen, definitely. Beautiful snake you have there!

[chris-uk]

Welcome to the forum. Looks like nice garter you have there.

[GarterGuy17]

Welcome ! Very nice snake by the way

[mikem]

thanks for the replies! she is a concinnus, yes? may be a stupid question, but the bold stripes on her sides confuse me. they are LTC and i was told they came from oregon. like i said, the male looks just like her, so maybe they're just dimorphic?

easterngirl, that's the plan! good variety of diet. as far as bedding, i'll probably put a bottom layer of newspaper and then add some carefresh on top for them to crawl around in. thanks for the advice!

[guidofatherof5]

Nice to have you with us.
Good looking snake.
Here's a link to the care sheet.
Garter Snake Forum - Garter Caresheet

[chris-uk]

thanks for the replies! she is a concinnus, yes? may be a stupid question, but the bold stripes on her sides confuse me. they are LTC and i was told they came from oregon. like i said, the male looks just like her, so maybe they're just dimorphic?

easterngirl, that's the plan! good variety of diet. as far as bedding, i'll probably put a bottom layer of newspaper and then add some carefresh on top for them to crawl around in. thanks for the advice!

They could be a concinnus from the photo you posted. The pattern looks right to me, but I'm not 100% on the redsided species. I thought the concinnus had a brighter red head though, so they could be parietalis... There's a lot of members who are more familiar with these species, so you'll soon get a positive ID.

Varied diet is the way to go.

[Stefan-A]

Probably fitchi, probably not concinnus, definitely not parietalis.

[chris-uk]

I had an inkling towards fitchi, but didn't suggest it as an option because I didn't think they were very common. But what's not common here is not necessarily so scarce elsewhere.

[EasternGirl]

I'm not good at identifying the different types of garters yet...carefresh sounds like a good plan...that's what I use. They do enjoy burrowing down in it. Be careful not to feed on it though...they can ingest it and get a blockage.