My son, who is 8, begged me at the pet shop recently (Saturday) to buy him a snake. I told him no, no, no, no, no, because honestly, I do not have any love for snakes. However, he loves snakes and loves the shows on TV where people go trap snakes. He was literally in tears in the store. I felt it was not right to discourage this for him, based on my fears, so I said okay. I asked the pet shop which snake would be best for a child, something I do not have to feed live mice or rats (absolutely will not do this), and something that would not bite. They suggested a garter snake. We bought him a garter snake, a tank, a heat lamp, bedding or what they called substrate, and these feeder fish (not guppies or gold fish, black fish of some type, small). I have been reading on this forum for a few hours and have seen that garter snakes do bite, and this concerns me a lot. I have read that the bite does not hurt, but I would think on an 8-year-old, a bite would hurt. The snake seems tame when he takes it out, he keeps kissing it, and it has not seemed like he wanted to strike or bite as of yet, but is this something I have to worry about? If I Posted a picture, do any of you think you can tell me what species it might be from, its general temperament, how big it might get, etc? I have to figure out how to post a picture.

Another issue we are having is feeding this guy. We bought 12 of these feeder fish on Saturday, and they were all eaten by Sunday. Should I be limiting how often the snake eats, like 2 or 3 times a week? The pet shop told me that eat up to 6 fish a day. So, we went back on Sunday and bought 2 dozen more of these feeder fish, and half of them are gone, so this snake ate 2 dozen fish in 3 days. This seems like a bit much for small snake. Also, going to the pet shop every other day is out of the question, so is there something I can buy online in bulk, maybe something frozen, that this type of snake will eat? I absolutely will not buy mice/rats or anything like that. We have pet gerbils, have had pet rats and mice, and I love these animals too much to use them as food. I read on this forum somewhere that somebody fed their snake wet cat food. Is this something a garter can eat regularly? Crickets are out of the questions also as I abhor crickets. I also will not buy roaches, same thing, disgusting.

Well, thanks for reading. We are a pet loving family, have 4 cats, a dog, pet gerbils, and my other son who is 6, wanted to take all the little white feeder mice they had at the pet shop home. He was horrified to watch the pet shop feed one of these mice to a monitor lizard. We also have a chinchilla, have had pet rescue rats, and any time there are kittens in the neighborhood, we take them in and find them homes.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, and thanks for making a forum for us newbie snake owners to come ask our dumb questions, LOL.

Thanks again,

Joy