Feeding garter snake live mice

[guidofatherof5]

First of all, they shouldn't eat anything with fur on it. Their systems just aren't built to digest it and it can cause intestinal blockages. If you're feeding an animal anything live that has teeth (this applies to any reptile) you should supervise until the animal is dead. A bite can do serious damage to the snake. Finally, wild garters rarely eat mice. They're primarily fish/worm/amphibian eaters. Plus, they run pretty heavily on instinct. If you're going to be releasing it in a couple months anyway, feeding mice probably won't affect his wild eating habits at all.

I think the amount of wild pinkies eaten by garter is probably higher then we all realize. Especially in urban areas where mice nest(garages, sheds, siding) I imagine garters keep a good number of pinkies from becoming adults. I don't think many garters would take on a full grown mouse but a nest full of pinkies is a great meal. Just my thoughts.

[d_virginiana]

I think the amount of wild pinkies eaten by garter is probably higher then we all realize. Especially in urban areas where mice nest(garages, sheds, siding) I imagine garters keep a good number of pinkies from becoming adults. I don't think many garters would take on a full grown mouse but a nest full of pinkies is a great meal. Just my thoughts.

Makes sense. I wonder what percentage mice would make up in a more rural setting where I imagine the nests are spaced out more and they don't have the same sort of year-round access to food and heat that they do when they live in close contact with humans? I kind of instinctively want to say that it'd be less, but where I live the rodent 'hot spots' are so dominated by racers and ratsnakes that I've seen only one wild garter in about fifteen years. They might have a better chance with the rodent population a bit more spread out so that it's harder for one of the larger rodent eating colubrids to set up camp and kind of monopolize access to mouse nests...
(Nothing to do with the original question, just thinking out loud)

[Cain149]

No live and no fur in my opinion. No live is the most humane and no fur means no chance of a fur impaction. Best to be safe.

Well maybe I will try some other foods, the next day after the mouse it decided to eat the goldfish that had been sitting in its bowl for the last week. Perhaps it was just getting used to the new environment and still in winter mode. It was a lot more energetic today and would hardly let me hold it. How big of a problem is thiaminase in goldfish? I had 2 garter snakes as a kid that were fed exclusively goldfish for over a year before we released them that didn't seem to have any problems.