Best Snake For Gecko Person?

[Xuniet]

Is there a reason you want an insectivorous snake? Just don't want to deal with rodents or something?

I recently had my pet rat die... So I really don't want to have to deal with rodents right now. Which is too bad, because I really love ball pythons and corn snakes. But that's why.

Might check into garter snakes too. If your problem is feeding mice, anyway. Garters can be fed a diet of certain kinds of fish, fish fillets and earth worms. They are very active and can make great pets. They don't eat crickets or other hard shelled bugs.

We have garter snakes around all the time, lucky me. I guess I can catch one. Or buy one. Whichever works best.

[Xuniet]

Sorry for double post, but I have two questions:

How do you feed fish to a snake? Alive? Dead? In water? Out of water? How big?

And:

Can you catch wild fish for a wild-caught snake? Wild frogs? What is best? If I have to buy fish, would small Walmart fish be okay? Or do I have to go to Petco? And what kind?

Okay, way more than two questions. And yes, I know they need other food besides fish, I just needed to know about fish.

[Charis]

Biggest thing about fish feeding, is do not use gold fish! Guppies are okay and silversides to name a few. Alive or dead, in water or out would depend a bit on the snake. If it is wild caught, alive might be needed, since it will be used to catching live foods. Around here, finding large enough safe fish was a bit of a challenge. But my garters would take fillets and frozen/thawed whole silversides, the silversides I got at Petco. They are usually used to feed Oscars and other carnivor fish. They are pretty cheap, less than F/T rodents or especially live rodents at pet stores. Mine also took thin strips of tilapia and salmon, though they preferred the salmon. Also fed them strips of trout that we had caught. Those are all safe fish.

[Charis]

For garters or water snakes, I'd suggest this forum. http://www.thamnophis.com/

[Xuniet]

Thanks a bunch! And I've done some research, it says no frogs or amphibians because of parasites. I think I'd like to train my future garter to eat dead fish, because I'd like to freeze then thaw to kill all parasites.

[reptile ryan]

Good luck with whatever you choose, sounds like you're going about it the right way by asking for people's help and doing research.

[Xuniet]

Thanks I guess I'll just keep an eye out where I live for snakies. One more question... Is there a morph guide for garter snakes? I searched it but google is not currently liking me... >.<

[Charis]

I'm not really aware of an actual list. I know there are two types of albino, melanistics and a few others. But mainly there are a whole bunch of species and sub-species that can look quite different. The two I had were thamnaphis sirtilis pickeringi or Puget Sound garters. They are quite beautiful, with blue and black stripes and blue bellies. But they are kind of hard to find, since they are illegal to own or take from the wild in Washington. My husband has an albino Checkered garter snake, he's very pretty too. I can't remember the scientific name for him right off hand though. I used to be fairly good with those but haven't used them in a long time and have started to forget them.

[Xuniet]

Ok. I'm not looking to breed, so that's fine by me. How long do they usually live?

[Charis]

They are usually a little shorter lived than other snakes. Somewhere around 8 to 12 years is about the average.