Hi I'm a newbie :D

[RoteLowin]

Hi guys! I'm Cristina and I'm from Switzerland... Sorry, but my English is quite bad and often I can't express my self correctly... so forgive me
I've owned a garter snake (thamnophis sirtalis) for about 3 years... It's really beautiful and cute, although I don't know if it's a male or a female and usually tries to bite my fingers!
I hope to find some help and pieces of advice to keep it as best as possible! I'm especially interested to learn more about feeding... I read your "Garter Caresheet" but I've got some questions Because on Italian websites they say different things so I got a little confused.
Anyway I've got some other pets... 9 rats, 3 mice, a dog and some goldfishes ^^
I hope to learn many things here, it seems to be such an interesting forum! Thank you and see your around! (grammar disaster )
Ps. What is the life span of a thamnophis sirtalis? They told me 8 years but I'm not sure about that

[Stefan-A]

Welcome aboard.

[GarterGuy17]

Hello Christina , welcome to the forum. Don't worry your english is fine I can understand you perfectly. According to Scott Felzer , a very well known breeder of garters ( Thamnophis ) says the average life expectancy is 10 year's. As for for the snake we can tell you what species and sex if you don't know them , but we will need pictures of your snake his/her head,body and his/her cloaca ( located between body and tail ). As for feeding ask away there are many things to be aware of when it comes to what not to feed and what can hurt the snake. So again welcome aboard we look forward to seeing you snake.

[Mommy2many]

Welcome to our forum! Your English is just fine. Post some pictures of your snake (bottom side) and we should be able to tell you if it is a girl or a boy.

[indigoman]

welcome to the forum!

[EasternGirl]

Welcome to the forum! Your English is fine...your grammar is not bad at all...you should hear my Spanish! I think you write English very well. Like the other members have already said, if you can post an underside picture of your snake...showing us the lower bottom of the tail area...we can tell you the sex. We can also confirm the species. Ask us any questions...we are here to help!

[guidofatherof5]

Nice to have you on the forum.
Here's a link that will help you sex your snake and also show the kind of photos needed if you would like us to lend a hand.
Sexing Pics.

[RoteLowin]

Wow thank you so much! ^^ You're really nice!
Oh my God how can I take a photo of my snake's bottom? It hates being touched... It's very difficult to hold it and take a photo at the same time... maybe I could put the snake in a glass box and take a photo from the underneath, later I'll see! That's great, Italian breeders told me it was very difficult or impossible to judge by a photo!
I usually feed him with fish (especially trout), frog legs (I buy them at the grocery store) and earthworms. On the 'dead' food (fish and frog legs) I sometimes put some calcium with vitamins... Some breeders told me that earthworms aren't good because they could carry parassites and that crickets are prefered if I want to introduce insects in its diet, is that true? I read the contrary but they insist And then they told me that it's better to feed my garten snake only with baby mice and to give fishes just few times... I got a little confused, I'd like to make it clear...
Here some photos of my snake...
In my bath... I put it there in a cloth bag while I was cleaning its terrarium, but it found the way to get out of the bag! It got very angry and hissed like a small cobra

[guidofatherof5]

No insects at all. That is a big No No. Garter snakes can not digest the exoskeleton of the insect. This can lead to blockages and death.
Visual sexing is probably one of the most used and accurate way to sex a garter snake.
I also believe the likelihood of night crawlers introducing parasites to be very low. Far lower then frog legs.
A good food item for garters is frozen/thawed pinky mice.

[snakehill]

Beautiful snake!!!!