brewmaster15
09-30-2014, 12:21 PM
So we had a real shocker last night.
A little background, I keep all kinds of critters here and my kids are exactly like that as well. We are a house of pets...not just fury ones. WE have tortoises, salamanders, snakes etc and actively breed them. Any how...it not like we don't have any snakes here, but still my son wanted to keep a garter snake as a pet. We had found it while moving the woodpile last week in preparation for winter. It was in between the logs. I agreed he could keep it, take care of it etc. These are easy snakes to raise and its a little one, maybe 16 " . They eat worms,slugs, small fish and frogs. So we set up a tank. A few days latter we found another.. and again the question can we keep it. its about the same size, I told him he could keep it a few days and then decide which one he wanted to keep.
At this size its hard to sex them, but of course after having bred rat snakes, Ethan starts with "wouldnt it be great if they bred Dad?" I shared a story with him about when I was his age, had a garter snake I found and kept with out my mom's approval. Little did I know it was a female and she had 22 babies...I found out then hard way that these are small snakes as babies...They got right through the screen lid and I got royally in trouble with my mom!:) He got a kick out of the story and we left it at that.
Last night he yells out..."Dad the garter snake had babies!" I honestly thought he was kidding. Its really late for baby garters here. Theres really not enough time to get enough food before winter, usually they have the babies a little earlier. But there they were. 11 baby snakes wiggling around the tank. She had 15 , but four were still born.
Sometimes in colder areas live bearing snakes will over winter with their babies inside, and have them in the spring. That may have been what she intended, either that or it was just a late hatch.. Either way I have to laugh as Ethan got his wish.. His snake had babies! though it wasn't by mating with the other snake...these babies were probably conceived awhile ago. Whats odd is garters usually breed soon after coming out of their dens in April.
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=83682&d=1412093942
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=83681&d=1412093942
Guess we will be keeping a worm culture all winter!
-al
A little background, I keep all kinds of critters here and my kids are exactly like that as well. We are a house of pets...not just fury ones. WE have tortoises, salamanders, snakes etc and actively breed them. Any how...it not like we don't have any snakes here, but still my son wanted to keep a garter snake as a pet. We had found it while moving the woodpile last week in preparation for winter. It was in between the logs. I agreed he could keep it, take care of it etc. These are easy snakes to raise and its a little one, maybe 16 " . They eat worms,slugs, small fish and frogs. So we set up a tank. A few days latter we found another.. and again the question can we keep it. its about the same size, I told him he could keep it a few days and then decide which one he wanted to keep.
At this size its hard to sex them, but of course after having bred rat snakes, Ethan starts with "wouldnt it be great if they bred Dad?" I shared a story with him about when I was his age, had a garter snake I found and kept with out my mom's approval. Little did I know it was a female and she had 22 babies...I found out then hard way that these are small snakes as babies...They got right through the screen lid and I got royally in trouble with my mom!:) He got a kick out of the story and we left it at that.
Last night he yells out..."Dad the garter snake had babies!" I honestly thought he was kidding. Its really late for baby garters here. Theres really not enough time to get enough food before winter, usually they have the babies a little earlier. But there they were. 11 baby snakes wiggling around the tank. She had 15 , but four were still born.
Sometimes in colder areas live bearing snakes will over winter with their babies inside, and have them in the spring. That may have been what she intended, either that or it was just a late hatch.. Either way I have to laugh as Ethan got his wish.. His snake had babies! though it wasn't by mating with the other snake...these babies were probably conceived awhile ago. Whats odd is garters usually breed soon after coming out of their dens in April.
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=83682&d=1412093942
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=83681&d=1412093942
Guess we will be keeping a worm culture all winter!
-al