Opinions on breeding a 'compromised' snake?

[d_virginiana]

Harley is recovering from her surgery to remove those stuck slugs, eating and coming out to follow me around the room whenever I go in there. She doesn't like the painkiller/antibiotic shots she's still getting, but she's dealing with it. The vets always compliment her behavior, since she doesn't try to musk or bite when she gets injections. :)

After talking to the vet, the obvious safest thing would for her to have no litter next year; live or slugs. However, a live litter would be much safer than another litter of slugs (still according to the vet). There's no way for me to control whether or not she ovulates, so I'm leaning toward breeding her next year. I wasn't expecting slugs at all since she's only two years old. The vet said that the surgery wouldn't make it dangerous for her to carry a litter; the danger is that a snake that has had problems in the past is more likely to have problems in the future.

This is a bit early, but I like to have these things planned out ahead of time.

[chris-uk]

Tough call...

If the vet's opinion is that a live litter would be safer than slugs I'd try to avoid slugs. Does the vet have good experience with oviparious snakes?

[d_virginiana]

Tough call...

If the vet's opinion is that a live litter would be safer than slugs I'd try to avoid slugs. Does the vet have good experience with oviparious snakes?

I got the feeling she wasn't very familiar with garters, but when I mentioned that they were oviparous she didn't seem thrown off by it, so my guess is she's seen them before. Apparently, unfertilized eggs often cause similar problems with egg layers too. And also lizards.
I'm going to call in a week or so just to get a final opinion about breeding and make sure I didn't misunderstand anything, but I'm thinking breeding is going to be the safest option.

I don't brumate my snakes, but it hasn't seemed to affect mating drive at ALL... Unless people think I absolutely need to in order to get a litter, I don't want to this year either. Two of my males aren't a good age for brumating (a little over 1 year, and over 12) and I don't want to brumate Harley, considering how much weight she's lost between the parasites and the surgery this last year.

One question; does anyone know if housing males and females together over winter makes them less likely to mate in the spring? Once Harley is recovered (when the stitches come out and she's back to her full weight) I'd like to gradually move her in with one of my males for space reasons.

[EKS56]

Putting Big Momma and Lil' Man together didn't hamper reproduction for them.

[ConcinusMan]

why didn't he just remove her oviducts? problem solved.

[d_virginiana]

why didn't he just remove her oviducts? problem solved.

She said she didn't recommend that surgery for snakes. Something about the placement and length of the oviducts; she said it didn't have the best success ratio in the world. Also, I think Harley's size (she's big for a two year old garter, but that's still small compared to most snakes) may have been a factor.

[ConcinusMan]

Indeed it is a factor. I only seem to have this problem when the female is rather small or if it's her first time and also when they are getting up there in age (about 8 years and up)

[d_virginiana]

Indeed it is a factor. I only seem to have this problem when the female is rather small or if it's her first time and also when they are getting up there in age (about 8 years and up)

Not only was this her first time, but she's a bit younger than I'd expect too. She's gigantic for a two year old, but small for a fully grown female.

Hm... I just thought about this, but the vet said that some of the slugs had actually broken apart and needed to almost be scraped out. That makes me wonder if that parasite she had that was causing her connective tissue to degrade had anything to do with it. She would've been on her last round of treatment about the time the slugs began developing, if they follow the same timeline as a live litter.

[ConcinusMan]

parasites complicate everything even if they aren't a direct cause