Can a Garter Snake live off of fish and insects?

Question

A friend of mine wants one and I know that their diet consist of fish and insects so can they live off of them or do they NEED rodents in their diet.

By the way we were going to feed it minnos and guppies.

I don't need a care sheet or anything I'll do the reaserch if/when my friend desides on getting the snake or not.

Answer 1

Garter Snake dont eat insects...minnows and guppies are fine..DONT FEED IT GOLDFISH...they also eat frog...and o heard they eat slugs...mines wont..

Answer 2

no they don't eat bugs.but you can feed them feeder fish witch is baby gold fish.and who ever said you can't feed them that well they are wrong i had one many years ago before i turned it lose because it was hurt and i feed it feeder fish,worms and live pinkie mice from time to time.oh by the way when they bite it doesn't hurt one little bit.well good luck.

Answer 3

Minnows and guppies are fine, as are baby mice if they will eat them. Mine do, but I had to rub guppies on them the first several times. They do not need rodents in their diet. It is optional. A diet of the right kinds of fish will be fine on its own.

   Goldfish are not a good food item. They will eat them, but a long term diet of them can cause health problems due to certain vitamin deficiencies. The petstore folks will probably tell you goldfish are fine, but remember, they most likely dont actually study gartersnakes- they just work there.

  Garters do not eat insects. Many will also eat slugs, worms, and frogs, although you should be careful about any wild food items as they may have been exposed to pesticides or herbicides, and wild frogs are often high in internal pesticides. I'd stick to guppies/minnows, cut up trout, or pinky mice, or a combination of those things.

  If interested, here is a forum all about garters, and the people are very freindly.     http://www.thamnophis.com/

Hope this helps.