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Can wild garter snakes make good pets?

xStaticSnow

xStaticSnow

New member
We have them EVERYWHERE here. If you walk down along the bank of a river you will probably find one on a few minutes.

I've handled plenty of them and never been bitten or musked. I know they are speedy little devils but it seems like they settle down a little while being handled (at least from my experience)

I would love the convenience of feeding live fish! I heard some people can get theirs to take pinkies too if they rub them with fish first.

I imagine they can be nippy, but if they are handled often will they start to calm down? Are they prone to musk when being handled in captivity?

Last, does anyone know what their preferred temps are? Would it be detrimental for a wild snake which is use to hibernation to be kept warm all year long? I'm not really a fan of brumating as I enjoy the company of my active snakes!

Thanks! :)
 
Yes, they can make good pets. Each snake will be different, but a wild garter probably won't be as handleable as a corn snake. I'm surprised the wild ones near you don't musk. The ones here musk like crazy, although I've never been bitten by one.

In general, males are more flighty/squirmy/skittish and females will be a bit more calm. I found my garter when he was a tiny baby and I handle him fairly often. He can still be squirmy but he does calm down. I was lucky and mine started on pinky parts right away, but he's also a Wandering garter (their natural diet consists of more rodents than other types).

As far as temps, garters will thrive at room temp. However, I do give mine a low-wattage bulb for basking, which gives him a hot spot in the low to mid 80s.
 
reptile65 said:
I'm surprised the wild ones near you don't musk. The ones here musk like crazy, although I've never been bitten by one.
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Okay thanks! :)

You know they could possibly be musking me and I just don't notice it? All the garter snakes I find here are in or around the water. They're usually wet when I handle them so maybe I'm just not noticing the smell for some reason :laugh:

What about captive bred garters? I love the look of some albino garters. Is there a temperament/handling difference between wild caught and captive bred garters?
 
xStaticSnow said:
Okay thanks! :)

You know they could possibly be musking me and I just don't notice it? All the garter snakes I find here are in or around the water. They're usually wet when I handle them so maybe I'm just not noticing the smell for some reason :laugh:

What about captive bred garters? I love the look of some albino garters. Is there a temperament/handling difference between wild caught and captive bred garters?
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Haha, I'm not sure how you could miss the smell. That stuff just seems to linger forever!

I would imagine CB garters would probably get used to handling more quickly. I'm not really sure though, since my only garter experience is with WC ones. I would still recommend getting a baby and getting it used to being handled early on. One of these days I really want to get a CB albino checkered garter. They are beautiful and I've heard that checkereds will eat ANYTHING you put in front of them.
 
You cannot miss getting musked by a WC garter. That said, the little one's are SO bad.. but it's very noticable. The HUGE ones are pretty awful..
Small WC garters can calm down and be great pets.
That said, I'd personally find some from a good breeder to eliminate the worry about it having parasites/diseases..
That's also due to the fact that I a good deal of money invested in my other pet snakes..
but thinking ahead, say it's your first snake to be..
I'd be paranoid years down the road getting a nice captive bred, whatever.. and it getting someone from the WC garter that maybe the wc garter was immune to. Someone with more experience may be able to shed more light on that though.
 
I have a WC eastern garter and 2 captive bred, a red sided and my new one is an albino checkered. The WC one, Bogo, I got as a baby and she tamed down really nicely with gentle handling. I also briefly had another wild caught that my hubby found for me. Never stopped getting frantic when handled and also bit dramatically! So I gave him a few weeks of the guilded cage treatment and returned him to the wild.

I would rather recommend paying the money and starting out with a captive bred. When I first brought Bogo home, the only thing I could get her to eat was salamanders! The vet said to switch her over to mice as soon as possible. Feeding salamanders is like feeding growth hormones with parasites! My garters will now feed on earthworms and pinkies ravonously! The thing I like about garters is that you can safely co-hab them where I wouldn't even try that with corns. In the wild garters have communal dens and frequently brumate in masses during the winter. If you're seeing so many garters, you probably live near a den.

If you still opt to go the wild caught route there are several things you need to be aware of. What are the state laws about capturing wild snakes??? If you live in Georgia and you tried to bring home a wild snake for a pet, you'd be breaking the law! Be aware of this! Also wild caught snakes can be full of parasites. Have you ever wormed a snake before? Do you know how to go about it? Wild snakes can also be difficult to get feeding sometimes. Bogo was. I got really tired of hiking my property, flipping over stones and logs looking for salamanders! And the salamanders started to get rather scarce. I was so happy when I finally got her switched over to pinkies!

Another thing to remember with any garters: some fish are not safe to feed! If you choose to feed goldfish to your garter, you will be killing them slowly! There's more info in detail on this on the garter forum. You might want to check it out.

Are you confident in sexing snakes?? You might want to be really good a this because if you happen to swipe gravid female from the wild, she could have anywhere from 25 to 100 babies! Are you prepared for that???? Do you have a rather extensive snake nursery already set up in your home????

Also, captive bred garters get bigger, MUCH BIGGER than their wild caught bethren!

In closing I would recommend checking out the garter forum. There's a ton of good info there.

Devon
 
I like gartersnakes a lot, but I prefer to enjoy them briefly in the wild and let Mother Nature do the work. That way, you can have as many as you want!

You _definitely_ would know it if a garter musked you!
 
Being amphibian eaters, you run a great risk of the snake having internal parasites if you take a Garter from the wild.

Just my .02
 
Nanci said:
I like gartersnakes a lot, but I prefer to enjoy them briefly in the wild and let Mother Nature do the work. That way, you can have as many as you want!

You _definitely_ would know it if a garter musked you!
Click to expand...

x2!

Saw a beautiful one while camping with the family this weekend! Sorry no pics.
 
Thanks everyone! I don't think a wild garter is for me :)
I'm a real fan of some of the captive bred albinos too and they're not too expensive. I think I will look at the garter forumn and check out some good garter breeders
 
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