Grass Snake (natrix natrix)

[thamneil]

Last year our school offered a German Exchange. Being me, my biggest objective was to capture a wild grass snake. Towards the end of the trip, we visited some sort of thermal springs (full of naked old people!!! yuck!) and I actually managed to find one hiding under a boardwalk. She was approximately 4 feet long and missing a few inches of tail. What a giant. They are so garter like in their ways. It was like I was just handling a big sirtalis for half an hour! Anyways... we let this monster go back to her smelly puddle and I left feeling very satisfied with my trip. These are such a cool species. If they were available in Canada I would definately have a few

[RedSidedSPR]

Those are so cool I want!!!

[Gene0514]

Hey aSnakeLovinBabe
Have you fed yours yet?
I haven't been able to get mine to try pinky parts or fish fillet. So today I got it some feeder fish. The store stopped selling feeder mosquitofish so I had to go for the more expensive blue danios. No minnows or goldfish for him! Is it possible to get them to eat fish fillet, worms or rodent?

[johnc79@hotmail.com]

These are awesome snakes, I'm surpised you have them over there so its cool to see. Its only fair as we have your garters :-) If your having trouble feeding them what worked for me was a live fish in a bowl with a couple of defrosted pinkys. They would be atracted to the live fish but end up taking the pinkys. Yours is the sub species Natrix natrix natrix. I keep natrix natrix persa and natrix natrix schweizeri. Our Brittish natrix natrix helvetica seem more programed to eat amphibians than the other sub species and are not good captives. I'll look forward to hearing how you get on with these. You won't be disapointed!

[Gene0514]

Thanks everyone!
Here are some feeding pics from today
The little one already shed and this was its second feeding.
This time its eating a mosquitofish. I'm gonna try my hand at breeding them so i have a cheap healthy food source available for it at least until I can switch it to worms or pinkie parts.
These are cell phone pics though so not the best quality. I'll use a standalone camera next time.

[guidofatherof5]

If your mosquitofish is Gambusia I have heard they breed better then guppies.

[johnc79@hotmail.com]

If your mosquitofish is Gambusia I have heard they breed better then guppies.

I was going to breed guppys but now you have said that I will look into those. Thanks for the tip

[guidofatherof5]

If your mosquitofish is Gambusia I have heard they breed better then guppies.

I was going to breed guppys but now you have said that I will look into those. Thanks for the tip

Guppies are still very easy to raise. Both are a good call.

[PINJOHN]

your mention of mosquito fish reminds me of holidays past, while the kids were growing up we used to take our vacations in the same place in Spain each year, Estartit, this place had a large marsh into which i would disappear for hours at a time the place teemed with these fish and i would sit quietly watching the young viperine snakes [natrix maura] hunting them i even brought some home and kept them for a number of years before stopping them breeding and letting them die out.
it never occurred to me that i might be breaking any laws [not sure that i did even now] we used to travel overland [not fly] so transport wasn't a problem and i never hid them at the custom point, one thing that puzzles me is that i was told back then that these fish were spread around the then known world by the ancient Romans to combat mosquito's but if they are a new world fish then this can not be true any ideas?

[d_virginiana]

Aww, cute snake. Also, those are really high quality for cell phone pics!
Breeding your own fish is a really good idea, especially since live feeders can get sort of pricey. If you get that started, you should put up a thread about it! I'd be interested to see your setup and how it works. This summer I'm moving away from the store that has been our cheap minnow-supply (not rosy reds, the silver ones) for the past 11 years, and I'm not sure if Houdini would ever forgive me if I stopped giving him live fish.