Pic: handfuls of garters :)

Well, our wedding was a few weeks ago; but Mark and I ran across some garters that had nothing to do with wedding attire!
We moved a bunch of roofing shingles that were piled by the house; 4 pretty big garters went scrambling everywhere! Mark grabbed three of them for a quick shot and amazingly was not musked at all. We rehomed them underneath our shed, about 20 feet away, since the shingles were getting moved away.

Pic!

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...arksnakes1.jpg

Can't beleive he didn't get musked, the only time I have ever gotten ahold of one without getting musked was in wintertime and the poor little guy was freezing, I ended up bringing him in and housing him til spring. Great picture though!

Nice snakes! I'm never that lucky in my area (Beachwood is snake-less :-( )! Those look like Checkered Garter Snakes.

Do people actually keep garters? I have tons of them in my back yard. They seem pretty snippy and they always musk me. One time I caught one and put it in a tank and a few weeks later there were baby garters everywhere! They love worms.

Is it the same kind of musk as retics have? If so, I've heard it's horrible!

Does anyone know if musking is more about the family of snake or what?

Stacks of shingle are an awesome place to find snakes. There was a stack in a dump site that I used to herp at were I was always guaranteed to find speckled kingsnakes when flipping shingles.

Great find!

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Originally Posted by Jenn

Do people actually keep garters? I have tons of them in my back yard. They seem pretty snippy and they always musk me. One time I caught one and put it in a tank and a few weeks later there were baby garters everywhere! They love worms.

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All you have to do is read my sig and you've got an answer. Maver (ironically he's the same kind of snake in those pictures) only musked once but he never bit me. Maybe you're catching one of those standard Garters (the green ones with yellow stripes)and like you said, small Garters love worms (and slugs) and eat them voraciously.

Heck yeah we keep garters! They are the greatest snake for beginners. I had a red checkered as my first snake (named Indie) and he was the coolest. :) Loved his goldfish and nightcrawlers, and it was tons of fun watching him go fishing.

Mine tried tagging me at first, but if I hadn't been watching I would never have known he was doing it. And I never got musked by him, but the one we had at the zoo nearly got me a time or two. Garters are great.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jenn

Do people actually keep garters? I have tons of them in my back yard. They seem pretty snippy and they always musk me. One time I caught one and put it in a tank and a few weeks later there were baby garters everywhere! They love worms.

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A few people do. I have a friend who has a garter snake as a permanent resident now. She found it with a section of tail that was dying. Being a vet tech, she took it into work and they removed the dead section of tail. The snake is active and quite healthy now.

cool pic.

i have 3 garters.
0.0.2 puget sound garters
0.1 checkered het albino garter.


not a fun snake to handle but they are sure fun to watch.