Our garterroom

[Gijs & Sabine]

All I can say is, I wish I was you.



But I'm still happy I'm me.

I think you're very happy being you, otherwise you were living together with Gijs and he snores really loud !!!

[Gijs & Sabine]

@ Suzoo: You're more than welcome ! But most people have an extra sleepingroom. We don't, we have our snakeroom. So the only place we have is between the garters

@Roy: We have breedinggroups aswell as a female group and a male group. When we don't want babies from a particular female we put her in the female group. This group contains different females from different species. Same with the males we don't want to breed with. We don't have any bad experience keeping different species together. But I have to say that any adult group, breeding, female or male, contains no more than 5 or 6 garters.

The young garter enclosures contains, depending how big they are, up to 50 garters. But when they get bigger we split them up. For example, one year olds we keep in a group of about 10 snakes.

We really prever to keep our snakes in groups, this stimulates them to eat. Here in Holland we would say: see them eating makes them eating
This workes aspecialy for babies. The first babies we had (eastern) we raised separate and a lot died. Maybe becouse this was the first nest, but also becouse they had no competition. There always strong ones who will eat right away and this will stimulate the smaller ones.
We have learned from that and now we keep the babies from each nest together.

And in our opinion they enjoy eachothers company.
And in breedinggroups it's good to have more than one male, so they notice competition between eachother and they have to "conquer" the female(s)

I hope you're alright with the answers.

Best wishes,
Sabine

[CrazyHedgehog]

Some of the best well reasoned arguements I have seen for keeping in groups, thanks for that, I may change the way I keep mine!

[Stefan-A]

We really prever to keep our snakes in groups, this stimulates them to eat. Here in Holland we would say: see them eating makes them eating

I have very little experience compared to most people here, but I think I can confirm that this logic works.

[GarterGuy]

Yes, thank you very much....it does give me something to really think about. Especially the fact that you keep different species together, that opens up all kinds of options for me.

[adamanteus]

I have read through this thread before, but I never posted a comment.... What an amazing set-up you have there! Can't wait to come and visit you in the summer.

[Sputnik]

Incredible!

I love melanistic garters! Would really like to buy one someday.

[MoJo]

Wow! What a beautiful snake room.

I find your reasoning for keeping the snakes in groups very interesting. If my girl Tiger is gravid I still can't decide what to do with the babies. When you have them in a large group how do you know who is eating and who isn't?

Joanna

[drache]

yes
I'm really glad you revived this thread, James, because it happened before i joined, and this is the first time I'm seeing it.
this is an amazing, inspiring snake room
I am so itching to build . . .

[GarterGirl]

That is one awesome room! I wish I had a room like that!
Maybe we could have one when we move!