• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Please Garter Snake!

get a stick to push slighty on its tail and put out palm of hand in front of it to see if it snaps if so grab behnd head if not pick up... look in wooded areas low to the ground
 
cornsnakeboy12 said:
:twoguns: I am going to put up a corn snake site but dont know any good affiliates anyone know any good snake affiliates?
:blowhead:
Click to expand...

Wow...way off-topic and completely unnecessary...

Anyhow...garters can't really hurt you. Occasionally, one in about 150 people have an allergic reaction to their saliva and might feel like a bee sting for a couple days, but no big deal.

If you really want to catch a garter snake, just gently pick it up and don't restrict it's movement. It won't bite unless it sees you as a threat. All of this:
get a stick to push slighty on its tail and put out palm of hand in front of it to see if it snaps if so grab behnd head if not pick up...
Click to expand...
is completely unnecessary. You can stop it from fleeing by gently grabbing the last 1/3 of it's body and lifting it off the ground. If you keep the front third on the ground, they usually settle down fairly quickly. Once they settle down, you can usually slide your other hand under their bellies and get them off the ground with little trouble.

This part:
...look in wooded areas low to the ground
Click to expand...
is pretty good advice. I would also recommend streamside or lakeside, cooler areas with lot's of grass and fishing spots. Garters typically like to fish, and they are diurnal so will be active during the day, but during the hottest part they will retreat to seek cool coverage. Flipping rocks and bark can be productive during this time, just be sure not to ruin habitat...leave the place nicer than you find it. If you happen to have a pond in your backyard...you're golden. Stock it with minnows and small fish, and they will find you...;)
 
I guess I was one of the unlucky rare ones who have a reaction to garter snake saliva, or bacteria in the snake's mouth. It happened like this; I was chaperoning a field trip to a nature center when my triplets were in 1st grade. The ranger/docent/whatever-his-proper-title-was asked for an adult volunteer to hold the relatively huge (over 3') garter snake for the kids to pet.
Naturally I volunteered.

Unfortunately my left hand was a bit too far back on the critter's neck, and it wrapped its jaws around the knuckle at the base of my thumb. That darn garter snake just kept adjusting its jaws, doing its darn level best to eat me. Talk about not recognizing when a prey item is too big!

The ranger/docent/whatever-his-proper-title-was was chagrined. I was mildly amused. One of my sons thought it was hilarious. My daughter was in tears. The son who, at the time, said he wanted "to be a herpetowogist" when he grew up was intrigued. The other adults were horrified. Needless to say, the kids found this to be a memorable field trip, and learned that snake bites aren't necessarily a big deal.

No problem, until the next morning when my hand was swollen and inflamed. I ended up having to take some meds due to a mild allergic reaction. But you know what? It hasn't stopped me from handling garter snakes. I'm just more careful! (Heck, my reaction to a stick from a nettle is WAY worse.) I know worse reactions are possible, but there's no need to worry for most of us.
 
I'd try flipping tin, shingles, chunks of carpet, whatever, in the morning before they warm up and come out. Later, look in grassy meadows (where they are hunting frogs who are hunting grasshoppers), along the edges of roads, anywhere near water. IMO, garters are likely to bite, but calm down very quickly. May as well not restrict the head- you're going to have to let go of it eventually. It's less likely to bite the hand that is holding it (once you have it picked up) than your other hand or anything else that moves. They are also quite likely to musk. It washes off. Pretty smelly, though, as snake musk goes.
 
I usually find them sunning them selfs, and when i flip over tin and stuff like wood i find some milksnakes or dekays.
 
Around here, garter snakes are extremely rare all year long except a few days in the year when they are, for whatever reason, EVERYWHERE, specificly on the roads. I'm guessing these are their breeding days, but really I can't say for sure. Garters love to eat woodfrogs, and I've also seen them eat nightcrawlers. If you take one from the wild, please put it back where you found it once you're done with it. You never know what effect it could have on its environment.
 
My first snakes were 3 garters. There are a lot of them around here. I almost always see them near lakes & rivers. The first two we (my brother & I) caught to keep were about 12" & I'm guessing 4-8 months old. This was when I was 10 & my brother 12. We'd had them for a few weeks when somebody gave us a 3' garter they had caught. None of them ever tried to bite, though the big one did musk us a few times. We fed the little ones on guppies & the big one on feeder gold fish. My Mom didn't mind the little ones but did not like the big one. We'd had the 3' one a year when she must have decided it was a really good setup she had going, because we came into the room one day & there were 11 5" baby snakes dripping from everthing in the cage. That was enough for my Mom though so they all went back outside.
 
cool yah i breed some two by accident i left in the sun to warm up and bam in a few weeks later babies everywhere. i had a melinestic garter and a normal. so yah its fun to have garter snakes as pets but some times they can stink up ur room
hahaha
 
I catch hundreds of garters a year b/c I have a small snake removal thing in my neighbor hood I reoved 6 in one day once. Anyway look in woodded areas near the ground. Uunder wooden boards but watch our copperheads live under there 2
 
hiddenhollowherp said:
Around here, garter snakes are extremely rare all year long except a few days in the year when they are, for whatever reason, EVERYWHERE, specificly on the roads. I'm guessing these are their breeding days, but really I can't say for sure. Garters love to eat woodfrogs, and I've also seen them eat nightcrawlers. If you take one from the wild, please put it back where you found it once you're done with it. You never know what effect it could have on its environment.
Click to expand...

Garter snakes are not rare in MN.
We have 2 species located here.
Eastern Garter and the Plains Garter Snake.

You are not really going to find many with in the Twin Cities area (Minneapolis and St Paul) due to land development but once you are in the Rural areas they are easier to come by.

They do seem to explode out around March and April sunning them selves on the roads and in open areas. Garters tend to hibernate in Hibernaculum. Be it an old stone wall, an old house any place where they can mass together.

My favorite story hearing are new couples buying an old house (in the fall or winter) and in the spring the basement having tons of Garters due their house/land is a Hibernaculum. Its very amusing hearing these panicked and terrified people talk about how there house was over ran by Snakes.

But tyflier has the best advice in finding Garters.

I found this guy in October sunning himself on a stump. It was 50 degrees outside and I just bent over and picked him up.
He has a lot of scar tissue and I took pity on him and brought him home. He dines on crappy minnows and I am slowly trying to convert him to pinks. I have a second one that loves eating pinky mice. So eventually, I hope this guy does as well. For some reason, my garters here do not take to earth worms. But it does make sense for mn garters not taking to them. Earth worms are not native to MN. They are an introduced animal due to fishing. You can actually read about it here.

gartersnake1.jpg
 
Garters are extremely rare in northern Minnesota. I do know that once you get to the bottom half of the state, where everything is flat and covered in corn, they are like fleas on a warthog! ;) Last summer was the first summer in four years that I even saw a garter. But when I saw them, it was hard not to! I'm sure that each one I saw was a hundred feet from another. Oh boy, you should have heard my neighbor lady screaming! Thankfully, I'm the "snake-napper" in my neighborhood too, so no snakes were harmed! :D

It is odd how garters prefer wet prey. If you catch woodfrogs, they will wolf them right down. Toads they won't touch (which could be because of their defensive glands). I would agree though that garters can be very smelly! Once you get used to it, it becomes a welcome thing, kind of like mice. ;)
 
I actually picked up a trio of baby albino checkered garters last week for $30 for all and he threw in the complete setup and 50 frozen pinks (i love craigslist). In the summer I literally see hundreds of eastern garters, even accidently hit a few with the lawnmower. I do notice a HUGE difference in the temperment of the cbb ones I bought vs the wild ones.
 
last year at my camp i found a baby garder that was only like 5in a glorified worm and i kick myself for not keeping it because it was so small and didnt stand too much of a chance it was in my well box i was so scared when i first seen it though even though i have a snake i always have a fear in my mind of finding a venomus one
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top