Hi! (Newbie who rescued a young and injured snake)

[Mairi]

One quick question. It said on the care sheet not to brumate a snake under 16" for breeding purposes. Does that mean that I shouldn't brumate my little girl this winter? Does it make a difference if she's so young? Do I brumate her if she goes off of her food around winter time?

Thanks for any help - I know that in most animals, taking care of babies is different than taking care of adults - didn't know if that applies to snakes or not.

[reptile3]

Hello Mairi, Welcome!!!

[Seere121]

Hello, and welcome. Just tossing in my two cents about Snakes.
If you decide to feed minnows, guppies, or goldfish, make sure that you have a vitamin powder with vitamin B1 listed because the fish above can cause B1 deficiency which is harmful and ultimately fatal to your new snake. B1 is also called Thiamin. Something I do with my garters as soon as they're big enough is to switch them to pinkies or fuzzies. The mice give the snake a more complete diet than the fish alone will, and you dont have to worry about Thiamin deficiency.

[Snaky]

Welcome and have fun here

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Hello, and welcome. Just tossing in my two cents about Snakes.
If you decide to feed minnows, guppies, or goldfish, make sure that you have a vitamin powder with vitamin B1 listed because the fish above can cause B1 deficiency which is harmful and ultimately fatal to your new snake. B1 is also called Thiamin. Something I do with my garters as soon as they're big enough is to switch them to pinkies or fuzzies. The mice give the snake a more complete diet than the fish alone will, and you dont have to worry about Thiamin deficiency.

I am not sure if anyone else saw this post, but I did, and I need to point out that it contains some bad information.

Guppies do not contain thiaminase, and are 100% safe for the snake.

Goldfish, on no circumstance ever, should ever, ever be fed to your garter snake, because no amount of vitamin powders will help, because Thiaminase blocks the absorption, so nothing gets absorbed even if the supplement is there.

Rosies should only be fed very sparingly at the MOST, but I recommend not using them at all, because they too contain thiaminase, just to a lesser extent.

using mice from the start is a good idea, but only as part of a balanced and thiaminase-free diet. Feeding pinkes one week, and goldfish the next week will still get you a very sick snake in the long run.. because no amount of supplement can cancel out the harmful effects of thiaminase.

Hope this helps some... I am glad you are so taken by your new garter, and welcome to the forum!!!!

[drache]

welcome to the forum, Mairi
don't worry about brumation just yet
good job saving the snake

[Mairi]

Update: My little girl won't eat! I have tried earthworms, whole pinkies, pinkie parts, worm-scented pinkie parts, and a guppy. I am very careful not to startle her when I put food into her cage, but she runs into her hide box and won't come out until I remove the food. She has sniffed the worms, but as soon as they twitch she runs away as fast as she can go. I tried wiggling one of the pinkie parts in front of her nose to see if I could get her interested in it, and she ran into her hide box and stayed there for the rest of the day. As long as I'm not trying to feed her, she is happy to crawl around her cage and explore. She plays in her water bowl, watches with great interest when someone is near her cage, and even investigates and climbs all over any new objects that are placed into her cage. But she appears to be absolutely terrified of anything that smells like food. I have made sure that her cage is clean and warm enough, she isn't in shed, and her tail is almost completely healed.

?!?!?

Did I get the world's most timid snake?! Are there some tricks that I can try (besides what I have tried above) that might help her to get interested in food? She appears to be healthy and energetic, but I am worried that she will starve to death. If she doesn't eat soon, my husband and I are thinking about releasing her back into the wild. I don't want her to suffer. There's no point in keeping a snake captive if I can't give her a good life and keep her happy. If it comes down to that, maybe I will see about finding an older snake (that is a proven eater, lol) to adopt. But I'm not ready to give up on my little girl quite yet.

Help!!!

Mairi o.O

[infernalis]

Have you tried placing a live fish or two in the water bowl??

Another option is to place a cut hunk of sod (Lawn) in the bottom of the cage, and release a few live worms in there.

Then the snake can hunt for food (just like in nature)

[Mairi]

Hmm, I will try that. The sod is an especially good idea. I think that she might eat an earthworm if she had some time to think about it (since she seems especially interested in the scent), but the earthworms die too fast when I put them in her cage. I will try both of those things and see what happens. Maybe making catching her food more interesting and natural (and hopefully, therefore, less scary) will spark her interest. I'll let you know what happens!

Mairi

[Odie]

Hi, from Oregon, Mairi