Friday, July 13, 2012

"Nagini" the Garter Snake Tries Some New Food

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"Nagini" is a very young garter snake that we've had for four days now. We think that she is most likely a Western Terrestrial Garter Snake (Thamnophis elegans).


The day after we caught Nagini, we successfully fed her some small, live feeder fish from a bowl full of water.  That was on Wednesday. Today (Friday) I tried feeding her some bits of a pinkie mouse. Using feeder tongs and just a little bit of movement, it didn't take long at all to get her to strike at this new food.

Based on the information that I have been able to find on the internet, pinkie mice are better than other food sources because they're free of parasites, mites and worms. Also, they provide complete nutrition to the garter snake, whereas other fish, amphibians, and worms are all deficient in some important way. For those reasons, I was glad that we could get our young snake to eat these pinkie bits very easily.


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