Hi everyone

[lauwersp]

Well... in reading many of your posts, I will be the first to say I am really the newbie of this group. I love snakes... and I now live in Northern Michigan, so I caught my first garter snake, an Eastern Garter about a week ago. I've been doing a lot of reading on the internet to get a feel for taking care of him (I think it's a him).

I finally found this group today, as I was getting really frustrated with my new snakes lack of eating... now to be fair, there hasn't been much more than a couple worms in there (besides all the inedible things my dad keeps wandering over and throwing in there... spiders, bugs etc.), but it's hard to keep tabs on whether worms are being eaten when i have a lot of dirt in the tank (trying to simulate his natural environment).

I bought a bunch of minnows today (I'm going to convert to frozen fresh fish but I have to go to "town" to get that), put em in there with him, and then started reading in the forum... I was getting kind of irritated that my snake (haven't thought of a name yet) LOVED swimming with the minnows but just played in the water and ignored them. In fact, I counted 17 times that he stuck his head under the water without interest in the fish.

Now I know a newfound snake may take several weeks to acclimate to the point of feeling comfortable to eat, so I was preparing my first post to be questions about it when I saw a quick darting movement to my right (where the tank is) and sure enough, minnow had been captured.

It really was amazing to watch him articulate the fish into his mouth and swallow it... then right back for another one... and then a third! I hastily pulled the remaining three minnows out as I didn't want him to over eat...

Anyway... I thought I would share my first success... I feel much better now. My plan is to give him two minnows a week as each one left a significant bulge. Everyone please feel free to comment... I'm here for your expert advice. I'm posting a few pics... the tank he is in has some mineral deposits as it was very recently used for fish and I was excited to build him a home. I'll clean it up and take better pictures soon.

Nice to meet you all.


Peter

[Stefan-A]

Welcome aboard.

[infernalis]

[Laura]

Hi there from England

[gregmonsta]

Greetings

[drache]

welcome to the forum, Peter

[ssssnakeluvr]

welcome to the forum!! nice eastern. it's normal for them to go a week or 2 before eating after being taken in. eating already is a good sign. don't worry about overfeeding him...they can overeat, but not very often

[Mommy2many]

Welcome from Connecticut!

[bkhuff1s]

Hello, welcome

[ConcinnusMan]

Welcome. Nice eastern. Some advice: don't worry so much about the "natural environment" and just keep your snake clean, warm, and dry. Don't use dirt. You're opening things up for a respiratory infection and/or skin infections. There are some elements of nature that do not belong in a captive situation because they will not be good for your snake.

Might want to read this thoroughly and comply with the care instructions. Do that and your garter snake will thrive. Here's the care sheet: http://www.thamnophis.com/caresheets...ake_Care_Sheet

Good luck!