![]() This is usually somewhere between the beginning of October and the beginning of November. Not all snakes stop feeding out of their own, and at a set date I stop feeding altogether. Normally little mating behavior can be observed in the summer months, but as soon as the nights start to cool down mating behavior gets more frequent and intense. Higher mating activity during days which are a bit warmer then usual for the time of the year.Apparently looking for a good place to hibernate. Crawling seemingly restless through the terrarium, rubbing the snouts against the glass.Retreating to the coldest part of the terrarium under stones or leaves and not or hardly showing themselves to sun during daytime.Other signs which show the snakes sense that winter is coming are: I believe that this cooling off during night triggers the snakes to prepare for hibernation. But when the nights start to cool in September room temperatures can drop to 18 – 19 ☌ at night (terrariums are only heated during daytime), and later in October and November the temperature drops further to 15 – 18 ☌ or even less. Years ago my snake room was far less isolated and hence much colder in September/October then my current snake room the snakes stopped feeding often as soon as end of September.ĭuring the summer months of June – August the night temperatures almost never drop below the 21 – 23 ☌ at night. But the better your room is isolated and the more terraria are in the room the less the room temperatures are influenced by outside temperatures. Because I keep my snakes in an unheated room the dropping temperatures outside influence the temperatures in the room and in the terrarium. This often happens somewhere in October or November in my current snake room. Somewhere in the fall it is noticeable that the snakes slow down their feeding frequency, eating only small amounts or that they stop feeding altogether. Thamnophis elegans terrestris adult during hibernation in a larger container. Hibernating garter snakes is very important when you want to breed them consistently, even though there are plenty of examples of successful breeding results without a hibernation. Visiting their natural habitats during winter time reveals no or hardly any activity, except on some of the warmer winter days. This also counts for garter snakes from regions which are considered as southern without a cold winter like Thamnophis sauritus sackenii from Southern Florida or Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia from California. Just like being awake 24 hours a day without sleeping. So keeping your garter snakes warm year round seems very unnatural to me. The natural selection pressure is extremely high. Those that do not succeed will never make it until adulthood and will never participate in mating. All snakes, juveniles or adults, need to survive the sometimes harsh winter conditions. In my opinion, partly based on several journeys to the US and Canada visiting the different garter snake habitats in different seasons, hibernation is a crucial part in the life of garter snakes. I hope my experience can help other garter snake keepers with hibernating their favourite snakes in a successful way without losses. And I do not know many who hibernate the very small juveniles in their first winter. In general many people put drinking bowls in the hibernation terrarium and keep the substrate relatively dry. But even many more experienced hobbyists see the hibernation period as a challenging period. Practically every starting hobbyist finds it very scary to hibernate their little Garter Snakes. Many (especially those that are new to the hobby) hobbyists are struggling with what to do in early winter en often get confused because of the overload of (often contradicting) information. ![]() ![]() Thamnophis atratus YOY during hibernation in a small container.īut even as of today this subject is very much relevant and intensely discussed on fora and facebook.
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