Like all snakes found in nature, the garter snake is a carnivore. The diet of a garter snake includes almost any creature that they are able to overpower and devour. These creatures mainly include: - rodents, amphibians, snails, leeches, lizards, earthworms and certain birds. A common misconception about the garter snakes is that they eat insects. There are certain species of snakes that do eat insects; however the garter snake is not one of them.
While the garter snake is dwelling any where near water, they can survive on fishes and other aquatic animals. These snakes swallow the food as whole, although the garter snakes mostly prefer live animals, they sometimes also eat eggs and carrion.
A garter snake is any snake that comes under the species of 'North American Snake' which come under the genus of 'Thamnophis'.
I will occasionally go catch minnows or buy feeder guppies from a nearby pet store. If you go do this, make sure you put them in a separate bowl of water rather than their water bowl because small fish from the wild are dirty and can cause algae in your pets water bowl. Same with store bought fish. Then most of the time I just go buy bait worms, and when you do that, make sure to put them in the refrigerator so they don't rott and die. A healthier thing would be going a pet store and buying powder for small snakes or garter snakes and sprinkling it on the worm or putting the powder in a bag of crickets and gently shaking it around to cover the crickets, this powder will make your snake more healthy and rid it of any health problems it already has.
If you have multiple garter snakes in a cage like I myself, put them in separate environments while feeding them, one of them could try getting dominate and take the others food or possibly eating the other snake.
DO NOT FEED YOUR SNAKE BIRDS!!! THEY CAN CARRY DISEASES AND THEY COULD HARM YOUR ANIMAL!
Take cautious care of your snake, each time it sheds, clean its cage and give it fresh water. Snakes usually prefer some sort of wood shavings for bedding ( bottom of the cage covering ). Clean the cage weekly.
I am a breeder of red sided garters, and I feed mine a STRICT diet of Rosy Red minnows, Silversides, and store bought earthworms. Garters are hardy little critters, and can survive on many types of foods, but to allow them to thrive, they do best on fresh Rosy Red minnows. Once you see your garter snakes hunting them, you'll understand. DO NOT feed them feeder goldfish, they can make your garters sick! Minnows and worms only. Store bought ones have a lower chances of being infected with mites, or gut loaded with insecticides. I used to catch wild cricket frogs for them in the spring, as a treat, but theres a chance they also can be infested with parasites, and they can feed on insecticide treated bugs as well, so I stopped. Hope this helps someone.
Garter snakes eat earth worms or mice . Garter snakes shouldnt be feed fish because their is not much calicum , but if you buy calicum powder. When the fish dies put it in the freezer then put it in hot water for about a minute then put calicum powder on it then use tweezers and then taunt the snake by wiggling it . The snake could react because of the powder but it is fine .
I have now, and we feed her minnows that we buy for 12cents a piece at the local pet store. We tried frozen mice but she did not like that. So we tried feeding her bugs, and she won;'t eat those either. So we bought a small plastic tank, along with some minnows, and when I got home I put them in her water dish so she can eat them. Snakes like to kill their own prey, it's their nature. They don't like frozen food, or things that don't move much. Hope I helped!
Garters rely primarily upon sight when hunting, "hearing" (sensing ground vibrations), taste and smell, the latter two combined in use with the Jacobson's organ located in the in roof of the mouth. They are quite agile, a trait which also enables them to successfully capture prey. They encounter their prey while moving through their territory during the cooler parts of the day--early morning, late afternoon and early evening.They eat leeches, small (freshwater) fish, aquatic snails and other aquatic invertebrates, amphibian larvae, small frogs and salamanders
Not in the wild, no. Garter Snakes and related Ribbon and Water Snakes typically eat frogs, fish, tadpoles, and toads, while the young ones will eat earthworms and other soft-bodied invertebrates. However, captive Garters and Water Snakes can be conditioned to eat mice, first by tricking the snake by rubbing a dead mouse with something the snake would normally eat, like a piece of fish, then gradually offering mice that are not "scented" with fish, so the snake gets used to eating them.
Mine eats small fish and pinky mice.. He is up to 2 mice a week.. Mine don't like them dead. He eats them alive and if he kills them before he eats them then he wont eat them.. you can even get the mice with just a little hair on them and it should eat those as well.. Mine does anyway..well anyway good luck with your's and don't get alarmed if it doesn't eat for the first few weeks.. It's trying to get use to it's surrounding. Mine didn't eat for the first 5 weeks I thought we were going to have to let it go.. Well I hope this helps good luck..
I just walked out my back door in Ontario Canada to take the dog for a walk and there was a snake with half a toad (both hind legs) in it's mouth...the toad was trying to get away and was huge compared to the snake. The snake ended up letting the toad go and the toad couldn't jump with one of it's legs and had goo all over it. It was quite the nature show for my urban kids who aren't use to seeing snakes..let lone one having a meal on our doorstep. Global warming...we see the darndest things these days!!
Have a visiting garter snake he has a big belly... Well compared to mine he is well fed. Can we send him for training to eat gophers ? We have a mess of gophers and they are killing my exotic newly planted trees.
I don't think so. Garters and other snakes are carnivorous. In the wild they will eat (depending on where you found it) aquatic animals,(minnows andor tadpoles) night crawlers, and sometimes pinkies. ( baby mice)
Snakes are meat eaters but they can eat grass there own poop and other small snakes I'm a profeshinal meening I catch them every day useing my own baer hands its easy to do this and you become better and batter everyday.
