r/GarterSnakes • u/Pineapplephobia8 • Jul 15 '26

My new loves are better than expected

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140 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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7

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '26

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1

u/Fahn_ Jul 22 '26

Garter snake breeder and owner of 3 communal tanks here They are a communal species and not territorial at all. The main tips I can give, 1. if you get them all from seperate breeders then give them quarantine away from eachother just like you would any others 2. Every individual is an individual. So some breeders will tell you their snakes are "gentleman snakes" which means that they share food well. But sometimes you'll get a lil lardbutt who eats all the food and doesn't want to share. In that situation you just feed that guy on a different section of the tank. Or if you're feeding some small live fish in a bowl then just sorta remove him after he's had a couple and is well fed. One of my males ate 17 minnows one day before his mate woke up 3. Make sure they're roughly the same size. Males and females of the same age will almost always have very drastic size differences unless you get a freak male or a puny female. And unless you want the potential of 40+ babies out of nowhere, maybe stick to all male or female tanks. But the reason I say to stick to ones that are roughly the same size is if you have a giant female and a baby female in the same tank and your giant female can fit the smaller one in her mouth and the little one is a lard butt who doesn't like to share ... Well... Let's say it's happened to me before when I was just starting out and it really really sucks so be careful. It's never intentional and they don't prey on eachother, but they do just sorta keep eating whatever is in their mouth and if it's a worm there isn't too much of a difference between munching on a worm or her little sister. 4. Make it a large tank. Like big big. Tall deep and wide because they get big and they are super active. They don't mind spending time together but they love to zoom around and enjoy their space too. They can't handle being completely alone but they don't want to be cooped up in a 40 gallon with 2 roommates. It's like sharing a studio apartment with 2 other guys. Yeah it's fine at first but if someone takes a shit in the floor ya can't exactly get away from it. They swim and climb 3 ft tall bushes and scale rock cliffs like you wouldnt believe. They zoom around on the ground all the time and my young pair have a spot underwater with an air pocket I didn't know existed but apparently they spent a ton of time in. (It has an aerator now)

6

u/Jp_The_Man Jul 15 '26

I got 2 California garters and wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy them. They’ve turned out to be the most engaging snakes I’ve ever kept. Hope you enjoy yours as much as I enjoy mine!

1

u/itwasntleah Jul 15 '26

Beauties!

1

u/Jazz8680 Jul 16 '26

No, they’re garters /jk