Ok, just kind of picked this up from the discussion, but do you have your young garter in with your adult wandering garter??? This could be VERY risky....wandering garters are well know for feeding on other snakes...including other garters. It'd probably be best to seperate them and try feeding them seperately. For the adult, the motion of the live rat pup, probably did get her going to take it, but I wouldn't use a live adult mouse. There's always the chance it could injure the snake. I don't even feed my big PI kind live rodents for just this reason. If you keep the mice frozen, they'll keep for quite a while....so you could wait to get some fish to scent them with. I keep frozen mice for months (I buy them in large amounts) with out any problems. You could also use earthworm slime to scent the mice as well. Hope this helps and hope your little one doesn't end up becoming a snack!

Roy