Shaun's Gregarious Garters

20/08/2018

Hello everyone! I apologize for a lengthy (2 months or so) absence on my end. For those who don’t know, I lost my brother in May, then went out of town, and then dealt with a crisis within my reptile collection, losing over half of my adults to cryptosporidium, only diagnosed after spending hundreds of dollars on testing because I pressed my vet to take further action. Regular parasite checks don’t catch crypto. For this reason, until I confirm the health or infection of each snake, I will not be shipping snakes to anyone. So far, I’ve confirmed my Lake chapala garters are clean, some plains garters, my kingsnakes/bullsnake/Great Plains ratsnake/Texas garter, but I lost 2 indigos, my best broad-banded female and 2 males, and my entire adult collection of eastern blacknecks. I know where it originated and all I’ll say is to make sure that quarantine of new snakes goes on for months and not weeks, no matter who sent you the snakes. I’m glad I was able to send so many healthy animals to people over the years so the gene pools will carry on from the beautiful snakes that I once had.

On a brighter note, here’s a video of a copperhead I was lucky to witness giving birth on a herping trip early Saturday morning. What an experience!

04/04/2018

06/01/2018

19 baby plains gartersnakes this morning, the first snake litter of 2018 for me! My T+ albino female plains was paired with my male T- albino, producing 10 visual T- albinos and 9 normal/red plains. Visual expression of T- is easily determined by looking at the eyes. Notice they’re bright red? Well, the mother is T+, and her eyes are a dark ruby color. Pattern color differences exist too, but as babies, it’s easy to look at the eyes.

06/01/2018

Pardon my absence, I’ve had the flu most of this week. That said, I have to go somewhere this morning, but I noticed my T+ albino plains girl gave birth to babies this morning! First litter of the year. I’ll count them this afternoon. Albino and normal hets. Here’s a dark, crummy photo of her basking over the last couple of weeks, just so you know what the mother looks like.

23/12/2017

Ellis County TX speckled king (a few miles from my house)

12/12/2017

Arthritis in the tail of my beloved 18-year old normal cornsnake, pantherophis geriatricus.

10/12/2017

36x18x17 Zilla cage setup for my holdback normal and my new albino juvenile Lake Chapala garters: spot 50-watt heat, fluorescent UVB, cypress mulch, and artificial plant cover providing different levels for basking. Extra large water bowl as well, given their proclivity for swimming.

10/12/2017

From the wild- some western diamondback rattlesnakes (crotalus atrox) that Rickey Wheeler and I found last weekend. 18 in less than 2 hours, all around the entrances to their dens near my house in Dallas County, Texas.

10/12/2017

Normal female Lake Chapala gartersnake, for comparison to the albino previously posted. The green will become more blue with age.

09/12/2017

Albino Lake Chapala gartersnake

09/10/2017

2014 Nebraska red male, 2015 Iowa red albino male plains garters

12/09/2017

I took my adult female Scotts gartersnake (mainly from one lake in Mexico, Lago de Magdalena) to the vet today for an annual checkup. She's 420 grams! A big snake with the munchies. These garters are among the biggest, reaching over 4 feet regularly. I also pictured a couple of babies (of which I still have over a dozen from this years litter) to show the variation among siblings. Easily one of my favorites, with a usually gentle temperament, and they're rare in US collections. I think I'm the only one with babies this year.

12/09/2017

I still have red plains garter babies! These are unique in that they were born to a T+ erythristic albino female and a T- ery albino male. The litter had plenty of albinos too (only one left available), so the red plains babies are heterozygous for both T- and T+ albino babies! Visual T- for those I currently have. They're the most red plains I've ever produced, meaning from the last 3-4 litters. All eat unscented pinkies.

10/09/2017

T. eques scotti: the attitude is bigger than the snake. I still have babies left, eating unscented pinkies.