A better pic of the snake from OWC this afternoon (slight BW warning)

[Stephanie]

She's gorgeous!

Does she have a little hiding place?

I love her colors against the stone. She also might like some aspen shavings to burrow in. I use that for most of my snakes because I find it easier to keep the tanks clean. I put a layer of paper down & then the aspen. When there's a mess, I scoop it out and then I completely change the aspen out every so often for a more thorough cleaning.

Congrats on your find. I hope you'll continue posting photos of her.

I'm not surprised she wasn't hungry. Around this time of year, snakes go off feed because of the colder temps. In order to winter over, their stomachs have to be empty or the food will just rot inside them.

[OWC Jamie]

I'll pass on the aspen shavings idea to her new owner tomorrow. No hidey hole tonight, but there's 2 pieces of slate inside with a little ledge overhanging. She'll do fine I figure.

Here's a strange coincidence. My 13yr old caught a yearling garter snake right in front of our house after school So there's 2 snakes in separate cages overnight. I know right where there's a den to release that one into though - same place I'm sure some of it's buddies are holed up already for the winter. Obviously being just over 60 today was enough to get them to come out and forage a bit.

Thanks!
Jamie

[Stephanie]

If you know where there's a snake den, you could take the chance of releasing her there; although, apparently there have been studies that track re-released snakes and the results say that if snakes are relocated more than a half mile from where they were found, they don't do well.

For hidey holes, we often use things like toilet paper/paper towel tubes, clean food boxes, cereal boxes, kleenex boxes, etc. I love those because if they get messed up, I just toss them and put new ones in.

I still can't get over how pretty she is.

[iaJim]

Why not let that garter snake out right outside of your house where your daughter found it. It was doing just fine on its own. Taking animals out of the wild is not really doing them a favor if they were not in distress.

[OWC Jamie]

The garter snake that was found at my house is being re-released into a den where it's got a great chance of surviving. The snake pictured above was caught INSIDE our building, looking for a place to hole up for the winter - and honestly, like Stephanie said, it's not exactly warm enough for it to have a great chance of just "being let go" and finding a warm place to ride out our soon-to-be-cold northern Illinois winter. We've got an employee that will take care of it over the winter, and re-release next spring. All will be right in the ecosystem