Garter Snakes "bathing" themselves after feeding

[Talon]

Thanks for the answers every one. Garters never cease to amaze me! I had a fun time watching them clean themselves.

One of mine cleaned her face in her water bowl earlier today after being a glutton. They also like to soak and swim on occasion too. Some people on here have kiddie pools they fill up for their garters to get some swim time in (make an island in the middle if you do this). I'm personally embarking on a very large enclosure (48x20x30) that will have a small pool big enough for juvies to swim in (I'm going to eventually have something bigger with a pool big enough for adult females.....once I have a house lol). If you are interested in doing that route let me know though as there are a few considerations to keep in mind when doing a water feature.

I actually want to upgrade my current terrarium to something larger. The babies I got are a year now, and getting larger themselves, so I can to move my males into something bigger. I have a large water bowl I got from the pet store. It's about 1.5 - 2 inches tall. The issue with it is my the garters in the past didn't really like having to go up and over to get to the water so I stopped using it. I'm considering getting a tall terrarium where I can fill it with 1.5 - 2 inches of substrate, so they can easily just glide down into the water bowl and have a little fun! However putting that much dirt I'm concerned about any issue with mildew or perhaps parasites being harder to treat.

Mainly I also want a larger bowl so I can occasionally feed them fish(with moderation of course.) Get them some mental stimulation going. They loved it before when I had a bowl of dirt and mixed some worms into the mix for them. I enjoyed also watching them shift around in the dirt looking for food! Would be awesome if I could watch them do the same with fish!

[Rushthezeppelin]

Thanks for the answers every one. Garters never cease to amaze me! I had a fun time watching them clean themselves.



I actually want to upgrade my current terrarium to something larger. The babies I got are a year now, and getting larger themselves, so I can to move my males into something bigger. I have a large water bowl I got from the pet store. It's about 1.5 - 2 inches tall. The issue with it is my the garters in the past didn't really like having to go up and over to get to the water so I stopped using it. I'm considering getting a tall terrarium where I can fill it with 1.5 - 2 inches of substrate, so they can easily just glide down into the water bowl and have a little fun! However putting that much dirt I'm concerned about any issue with mildew or perhaps parasites being harder to treat.

Mainly I also want a larger bowl so I can occasionally feed them fish(with moderation of course.) Get them some mental stimulation going. They loved it before when I had a bowl of dirt and mixed some worms into the mix for them. I enjoyed also watching them shift around in the dirt looking for food! Would be awesome if I could watch them do the same with fish!

BTW if you want to do a naturalistic setup with natural substrates you might want to look into doing it as a bioactive setup. The main component of this is having a variety of detritivorous invertebrates that basically keep things clean. If you are interested shoot me a PM.