mixed breed?

[vwsrcool]

okay i got a female maritime garter a few weeks ago, so i housed her with the 3 easterns we have, there are 2 females and one albino male, yesterday the male wouldnt stop humping the maritime, my question is will they produce babies and what would they be????

[Stefan-A]

Yes, they might produce babies (eastern x maritime hybrids).

[GarterGuy]

Sure they'd produce young. Maritimes and Easterns are just subspecies of the same species Thamnophis sirtalis. You'd end up with T.sirtalis(pallidulus X sirtalis)....basically a hybrid between the two subspecies. Don't know what they'd look like though. :confused:

Roy

[abcat1993]

That will be interesting to find out what they will look like. An albino (maybe) pallidus x sirtalis mix. Cool

[MoJo]

I have found that the people on this board are very open minded and helpful. I think unfortunately that many other garter snake keepers are not as open minded. When we were looking for info on what would happen after we saw our checkered male mating with our red sided female people's main concern was that we not sell the babies without being very specific about what they were and many looked down on the fact that the two had mated. It felt like people were more interested in making sure we did not "contaminate" the garter snake world than in helping us out!

I wish you luck with your breeding plans but I thought you should here another side of the story.

Joanna

[Stefan-A]

Well, it's a concern for many, especially serious breeders. Most want to come as close to the naturally occurring form as possible.

I myself have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Hybrids in general don't really bother me, as long as the owner is aware of them being hybrids and is able to keep them from threatening wild populations or messing up work done by serious breeders (buyers always need to be informed). On the other hand, a local (amateur?) breeder mixing two subspecies of Nerodia fasciata kept me from buying a pair. I admit I'm a hypocrite, since I just mated a parietalis with something that may or may not be another parietalis.

[adamanteus]

I agree, as long as the buyer is made fully aware of what they are buying, the choice to buy or not buy is theirs.

[boeh]

Hi there

I'm not a friend of hybrids. If they are declared as that, it's no problem. For the F1 it shouldn't be a Problem as well. But who can assure that they were declared as that in the F4 or F5? If someone cross the hybrids back to a clean line, it's probably not possible to see that this is a hybrid. And then we get to a point, where it is very dangerous for the clean lines. Nobody can control that, and it even don't have to be a bad will, maybe it's just ignorance, someone sell them as clean snakes.

That is how I see it. If it ever should happen to me, i wouldn't sell the offspring to anybody. Just because it is uncontrollable.

Best,
Cyrill

[drache]

hey
my daughter is a hybrid
and I think "very dangerous" is making it sound like the whole bloodline is going to go extinct
while I'm not fond of hybrids (the very word makes me think of garish corns), I also think racial purity is a human concept and not a law of nature

[Stefan-A]

hey
my daughter is a hybrid
Not in the same sense.


and I think "very dangerous" is making it sound like the whole bloodline is going to go extinctEven if that doesn't happen, it is still dangerous since it can ruin the work that people have done within the hobby. It's pretty much the same as a fake piece within the art community, except that this damage is capable of reproduction.


while I'm not fond of hybrids (the very word makes me think of garish corns), I also think racial purity is a human concept and not a law of natureI'm not too fond of the term "race" to begin with, but not even species are always clearly defined in nature. It's nevertheless irrelevant. Nature doesn't care, but humans do.

Speaking of corns, I remember somebody complaining about people having unintentionally mixed other species of ratsnake with corns over multiple generations, increasing the average adult size of corn snakes. I don't remember who it was or on which forum, but this discussion just reminded me of it. Anyway, it's off topic.

[boeh]

my daughter is a hybrid


Like Stefan said.



the whole bloodline is going to go extinct
while I'm not fond of hybrids (the very word makes me think of garish corns), I also think racial purity is a human concept and not a law of nature


Not the whole bloodline, but it can happen that a high percentage of the animals are getting mixed. In case of a large breeder, it could make a lot of problems.

The problem that I have is the following. Have a look at T. s. tetrataenia. There are only a few in the nature left, they'll probably not survive in nature. When we now start to mix them up with infernalis (some do that already), maybe we lose the "natural" speciem. Our grandchilds could probably only have a look at clean tetrataenias in a book?

It's a extreme example, that's right, but if to many people start to mix, it could really get a problem. And that's why I don't like such snake hybrids, and hope that hybrids in the speciem Thamnophis will be avoided. It always can happen, and I don't want to blame someone because of that, but I hope that people just try to prevent.

Cyrill

[adamanteus]

I can't see why people choose to hybridize, when it isn't necessary. I really fail to see the attraction. I know hybrids occur in nature, but I prefer to keep my snakes true to type.

[Stefan-A]

I guess it's a matter of preference.

[adamanteus]

I guess it's a matter of preference.

Indeed. I wouldn't condemn anyone else for it. It's just not for me.

[Serpentine99]

Well the hybrid thing is the developing human instinct to change the world around them, just as we make tools to prevent hard work, we use the same instinct for our enjoyment. Also the owning animals is another human trait altogether. As we become more ignorant of the word survival, we tend to see certain animals,(perhaps all) as just changeable playthings.

PS: I know it sounds cruel, but hey, we're only human.;)

[drache]

As we become more ignorant of the word survival, we tend to see certain animals,(perhaps all) as just changeable playthings.


I think that's what troubles me most about hybridization - the sense that people are regarding animals as toys or fashion accessories
that attitude I find more "dangerous" than the sullying of a bloodline
I tend to be much more critical of what people do to animals than of what animals do.

[boeh]

...the sense that people are regarding animals as toys or fashion accessories
that attitude I find more "dangerous" than the sullying of a bloodline
I tend to be much more critical of what people do to animals than of what animals do...

That's a generel problem - but I agree, this is more dangerous. People do that since a long time with dogs, cats, and so on. But they have reached a several limit on those species. "New developments" (ugly word in this context) are regressive. So a new "field" is needed...and was found everywhere in the animality :(

Futhermore, as crazy as it sounds, this is one of the less painful things that humans force to animals. We got other, more bestial problems.

[Stefan-A]

Let's not get carried away here, we're all pretty much treating animals as if they are toys. That's what pets (or whatever you want to call animals that are kept for other reasons than production) essentially are. We don't play with them like a child would do with a toy, but we are keeping them for the same psychological stimulation. The difference between those that produce hybrids and those who don't is so small, that it's in my opinion no point in condemning them on the grounds that they regard animals as playthings. They take their hobby one tiny step further.

In my opinion. Nobody has to agree. :)

[boeh]

Sounds good, but I only partial agree. In my opinion there are people that are straining the thing to much. They're trying to breed animals that are systematically seen, far away from each other. Without caring about the health of the snakes (yes, some of them die in course of those treatment), and there I make a difference to me.

But your right, this ain't a thing of hybridization, much more with how you deal with other animals.

[drache]

the difference may be small and perhaps I put too much value on caring
there are persons who are curious and fascinated and experience animals as a source of wonder and learning and while this implies the same amount of self-centeredness as that of a person who feels they look cool with a big snake draped over their physique (particularly one that matches their boots), I do believe there to be a qualitative difference
being somewhat of a failure at maintaining a regular meditation practice, I've not been able to overcome my preferences
so I prefer the curious person over the big-snake-makes-me-cool person
and I prefer animals in their "natural" state, but beyond certain loose parameters, I can't say I know what exactly that is
it's just a construct anyway

[GarterGuy]

Something to remember here, Maritime garters (T.s.palidullus) and Eastern garters (T.s.sirtalis) are just subspecies.....not only that they are subspecies that regularily inhabit the same areas and more then likely do hybirdize in nature. I don't think this is anywhere near the crossing of the Redsided (T.s.parietalis) and was it a Checkered (T.marcianus) that was discussed earlier....where you're crossing species. I'm also not a fan of "forced" hybrids....meaning hybrids that would NOT happen in nature. A lot of the corn, king, milk, bull crosses that are going around these days does upset me some. We're basically creating "designer" snakes, making something that would never occur in nature. But then again we're not doing this to release them back into the wild, and they're just for the pet industry, so if there really harm in it. I mean years ago, when albino burmese pythons were being first bred, many were born with out eyes (this was carried along with the recessive gene for albinism), but eventually this was bred out of them and now it's nothing to see an albino burm. I think it just comes down to personal choice and how we see the animals. Some see them as great creatures, no different then a cat or dog and want to try and see what they can do with them..to make them prettier or bigger or whatever....others, like myself, prefer to think of them as a bit of nature that I have to share my life with. In the end it's not so much right or wrong, it's more about personal choice. So there's my two cents....spend it wisely.:D

Roy

[Serpentine99]

Let's not get carried away here, we're all pretty much treating animals as if they are toys.


Can some of us really help this? Perhaps keeping pets is a high level of enjoyment. Like people who play sports event though they have an injured leg that could go at anytime. No matter how many doctors tell them off they're still going to play, for the love of the sport. May be that's how the extreme Hybridize-rs are like. They can't really help it, it's just how their mind was developed.I know it's kind of complicated, and i'm not agreeing or disagreeing, but they way you were brought up makes up for a lot more decisions than you think.:confused:

[drache]

Something to remember here, Maritime garters (T.s.palidullus) and Eastern garters (T.s.sirtalis) are just subspecies.....
oh, right
we were starting out with sex in Terry's tank
clearly not one of the abovementioned extremes of perversity
I think i may have only vaguely remembered that
thanks Roy