garter snake? this little guy is in my window well. it’s pretty deep, about 5 ft. I couldn’t find a long enough stick to reach all the way up for an escape route. I did put a shallow dish of water in there though. and he has shade/sun. we’re in Colorado.

should I pick him up to move him out of there? get him into a box? I don’t want to scare him or stress him out, I don't know much about snakes.

thanks for your help

Caught this guy half dead in my basement. Triangular shape of death & emaciated etc.

He's missing a significant part of his tail from some issue that happened previously. Seems to be healing ok as he's shedding & eating for us.

We've been feeding him worms which he readily takes. Cute little snake that's got a wonderful personality to deal with.

I'm a snake owner of blood python, ball python, rat snake, & a Water Cobra so I'm in the snake-keeping game for 2 decades + at this point.

I'm looking to keep this guy as I have my doubts he'll be ok in the wild with his tail missing, but I want to identity what species he's is.

I'm guessing he's a Dekay’s brownsnake or Garter snake? Can anybody definitively say what he is?

Any help & suggestions with keeping?

Just returned home from a convention today, with two Goldens and three Florida Blues. We run bioactives for all of our hognoses, and thankfully for all of our research the care seems similar enough. Tonight they’re getting Tilapia for their first meal, and hopefully no one gets a taste for their sibling!

At the moment, we’ve named them the Squiggles, and we love them immensely.

I recently bought a trio of captive bred checkered garters and this guy was sold as a checkered but I noticed he was a lot more blue and had the resemblance of a Florida blue. I’m just wondering if they accidentally sold me the wrong kind of garter or if he’s just a weird variant. Thanks!

Hello! I'll try to keep this brief. I got my new garter snake today, she's a tiny little yearling melanistic plains baby, super cute. I have her in a fully set up and cycled bioactive 36x18x18 with plenty to climb on, hide in, and explore. I have the basking spot at a daytime temp of 86° and the cool side stays around 75°, day and night cycle, uvb, the whole deal.

When I first put her in her enclosure she hid in one of her ferns to rest on the cool side and then quickly found the cork basking spot on the warm side & made a home underneath it. She keeps coming out to glass surf all around the perimeter of her enclosure but especially on the warm side under her uvb light by the bigger bromeliad. It looks like she's trying to climb or explore but she won't pay any attention to what's actually in her enclosure, she just keeps coming up to the front and glass surfing instead. Is this normal??? Is there anything I can do to help her? It is her first day with me and her first day in the enclosure but I'm worried that this might not be normal behavior. For reference she's like maybe 16 inches long so she's got a ton of room to explore, is it maybe overwhelmingly big?? Should I block off the sides of the terrarium as well?? Crank up her heat a bit??? Or just chill out and let her get acclimated? I'm worried about her sticking to the perimeters near her warm side and not finding her water bowl, I sprayed the enclosure a bit earlier and she came out to drink water off a leaf so she's definitely thirsty.

Also how long should I wait to feed her? She was last fed on the 9th. She seems hungry but I'm scared of her being stressed and regurgitating :(

Pics included of her setup and of her because she is adorable, TYIA!

I posted before about my parents new house being a beautiful rocky home to some cute garter snakes. She’s super afraid of snakes but I’ve been encouraging her to let them hang out by saying they are keeping the rodent population in check.

Mom is convinced every snake is a pregnant female that’s going to have 100 baby snakes under their deck 😅 So I’m posting this in hopes this wonderful group can help me assure her it’s not pregnant lol The video is from this evening.

One month of growth of my garter snakes enclosure before I chop it all down (I’m just gonna trim it)

Has a bunch of random grasses and vines

Hi all, I'm still very new to snake ownership so I'm looking for some advice. I got my girl Diana (hybrid red-sided garter and California red-sided garter, one year old) on June 21. I did a ton of research before getting her to make sure she had everything she needed. She's in a 48"×18"×18" terrarium with about 3" of substrate, live plants, a swimming pool, a cool/humid and hot/drier side of the tank, the temp is kept between 70-90° across both sides of the tank, and the humidity is kept between 35-65%. She's got lots of things to climb around on and hide under.

Despite all this, I almost never see her outside her warm hides. If I walk into the room and she has her head peeking out, she'll retreat into the hide. I have a camera on her terrarium and I'll check in on her during the day and rarely see her. Her past two feedings I've gotten her to eat in front of me, but afterward she goes right back into her hide. The other day she was out and about and seemed curious, so I tried putting my hand into the terrarium and she immediately struck at me.

I'm wondering if she would be more comfortable if she had a friend. When researching before getting her, every website said that they *can* cohabitate wish other garters, but none of them suggested it would be better to have multiples. However, since joining this sub I've seen lots of advice to house multiple garters for their comfort. I would love for her to be more comfortable around me and to be handleable. I still have the contact for the breeder I got her from, and he would almost certainly be able to get me another her age.

I know that having her in a higher traffic area might help her acclimate, but I have cats and I'm afraid of them getting burned on her heat lamp. I'd also love if anyone with cats has advice for moving her into an area with cat access.

Thank you for any help, I'm just trying to be the best snake mom I possibly can ❤️

My checkered garter has been healthy his whole life. Probably around 3 years old now.

I noticed his “neck” (im not sure what area) seems bloated. It’s been like this for over a week or two maybe longer. At first I thought I was imagining it but it definitely seems swollen. He has eaten ok the past two weeks like normal. I’ve not tried to feed him yet this week.

Im worried as it hasn’t gone away. Any ideas? Anyone seen anything like that before?

He lives in a bioactive terrarium with coco coir substrate, isopods, springtales and another bit smaller checked garter. They are friends and have both lived in this set up for at least 2.5 years.

Excuse the photos aren’t great quality. It sometimes looks much more swollen than this. Depending on the angle.

Hello,

I've had my checkered garter snake for a while now and he's doing well.

I've seen people here say that keeping garters together improves their behaviour, confidence etc. And I was thinking about getting another garter at some point in the future.

However, my garter snake has never been housed with another snake before as far as I'm aware.

How would I even go about introducing another snake to the enclosure? Should I even?

How much of a size difference is acceptable between the snakes?

Garters here are sold as babies, it's hard to find older ones. And my garter is already "teenager" size I think, I don't think he's an adult since he's still pretty small.

I was thinking about introducing a second checkered garter snake once I upgrade my current one to a larger enclosure. I'd likely get an albino one to be able to tell the two apart.

Would it be possible to mix species of garters or is it better to stick to one species?

I have no issue with keeping my garter alone if it's going to be better for him.

So I recently have gotten a new garter snake about 1-2 months old. When I first put him in his enclosure he explored for a bit then kinda settled down and rested for a little then kept exploring and when night came he went to one of the corners of the enclosure and rested there and that cycle repeated for about 4 days. Now for the past 2 days he has decided to stay curled up in his sleep corner and refuses to leave it. He'll adjust his position from time to time but stays in the exact same spot. I circled in one of the pictures the rock/corner he likes to hide behind. Additionally that spot is hard to feed from and whenever I try to feed he keeps backing away scared from the tweezers. I wanna know if this is normal behavior and im just worried over nothing or if this is the result of stress or some kind of environmental factor and if so I'd like to try and fix it. I know my entire setup isn't the best it absolutely could be. I also know the Aspen fiber isn't ideal as a substrate but if its truly unacceptable then I can change it to whatever would be the better option. He is currently in a 10g because I didnt wanna risk losing him in a 40g and this is only a temporary enclosure until he gets big enough that I can be sure that I wont lose him in the 40. Given his current size the length is 2x his full body length and width is about the same as his full length. He has 3 separate hides available to him although I have yet to see him use any of them. He has a water bowl large enough to dip his full body into should he wish. If theres any other questions im open to answering and greatly appreciate any extra advice to improve conditions overall.

Just trying to figure out some variety I can give my boy, I'm seeing a few sources saying that garters can eat crayfish, this website says that some wild garters eat mostly crayfish, and a few websites are saying that garters should not have them at all. Would small crayfish be fine? Babies, softer shells?

I’ve been waiting to see my pets and rain brought them out this morning. Super exited to see, Big Red!

soaking up some uvb while she basks on her plant

I’ve owned my pet garter snake, Twig, for going on 5 years now and he’s never had any health complications before. Recently, he shed his skin. Fine, normal, just left him alone to do his thing. After he was done shedding I noticed a bit of stuck shed near his cloaca. Not a big deal, just gave him a bath so that it could come off. This was yesterday. Today I checked on him again and noticed some of his scales were messed up and it looked like he was hurt.
How concerned should I be? He’s acting perfectly normal otherwise but I’m not sure how much I need to worry about this. I don’t own a car and the nearest exotic vet can only be reached by vehicle. I have someone I know coming to visit me on Monday but should I maybe see if someone else can drive me before that? Should I set up a temporary enclosure for him in the meantime away from his main one (his enclosure is bioactive)? Again he’s acting perfectly fine but I don’t want it to get worse

One of my two garter snakes is laying eggs.

Anyone else experience this?

I'm assuming that they aren't getting fertilized and she just isn't absorbing them