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Anybody kept snakes? I need a question answered

Allthingsterrarium

Active Member
3 Year Member
Messages
220
Hey guys! I've been trying to join snake forums ever since I got my garter snake roughly a month ago and I've been encountering so many registration and technical problems that I might as well have never joined at all. Anyway I know many of us here have kept all manner of terrarium animals and snakes are no exception so if anybody that has snake experience could answer this I would be grateful. As I am a beginner I chose a common garter snake or thamnophis sirtalis as my first species due to ease of care. I know they are a popular species that is common is captivity but they still fall far behind the pythons and boas, cornsnakes, kingsnakes and ratsnakes in popularity and as a result there is rather limited information on them by comparison, at least online but I'm sure this question really applies to any snakes in general. Now for those of you that don't know garters are great in that they have very flexible feeding requirements as opposed to other snakes and like many people I give mine mostly nightcrawlers occasionally calcium dusted and once a month on different days he also gets one live guppy or other safe feeder fish and one thawed pinky mouse and here's where my question lies. I know I need to calcium dust the nightcrawlers occasionlly but fish and mice have bones which are mostly calcium. I don't know if they digest the bones or not and I'm not about to sift through the droppings to find out lol. Will snakes get all the calcium they need from the bones of vertebrate prey or do they need to be supplemented from time to time? Also how much do they need to eat? I'm feeding him twice a week which is what has been recommended to me in the past but I'd like to make sure he's getting enough food at each feeding. I'm sure it depends what your giving him at a particular feeding but since he's still small at around 18 inches long he gets 2 cut up nightcrawlers per feeding and he gets a pinky or feeder fish one at a time per feeding. Is that enough? He seems healthy and satisfied. Thanks everybody! Any experienced snake keeper that can answer this I would very very much appreciate. :)
 
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