Cause of death....? :(

[Poezan]

Uh... So, um, I caught a garter snake a while ago, and didn't realize she was pregnant until she gave birth to five babies. She herself is healthy and awesome and perky and really really amiable. (In fact, I wouldn't have kept her if she hadn't relaxed and been very chill around me within twenty minutes of holding her!)
But anyway, her babies... I've done a ton of research and taken care of them to the best of my ability, given them all the proper care to my knowledge, but.... Well, I'm rather inexperienced.
One of the babies died soon after birth, but he had an obvious deformity, and it couldn't be helped.
But then another died. I couldn't find any information on what was wrong with him. He looked... Shriveled, mangled, deformed, warped. I had been feeding them properly and making sure they had plenty of (easily accessible) water, so I can't imagine that he was dehydrated or lacking in food.

Yesterday, another of the babies died. I don't understand it... He died looking the same way, but instead of changing from healthy looking to dead and mangled in the course of a day, he slowly deteriorated in health over the course of a week or two while I frantically researched and did everything possible to help him.

....now one of the two remaining babies is beginning to show signs of the same thing... Please, does anyone know what this is? Am I doing something terribly wrong? Is it something uncontrollable? Is it a disease or a parasite?

[Albert Clark]

Well, firstly what are you housing them in? Garter babies have a high mortality rate but it does seem odd for a majority of a clutch to die off like this. Wild caught snakes in general harbor heavy parasitic loads and also can have fleas or ticks. Essentially they are a risk for staying healthy as opposed to a captive bred animal. They can die from inappropriate living conditions too. The babies maybe experienced high stress levels which can be life threatening for them. Lastly, they have high nutritional requirements as babies and as adults. What were you feeding them? What type of enclosure were you keeping them in? They do have temperature requirements as captives also. Baby garters need to eat every two days after they are born until about 1 or 2 months old bc they have a very high metabolic rate.

[Poezan]

I have had them housed in a decent sized tank, enough room for plenty of movement and exploration, but not too big (based on my research), and they shouldn't have experienced too much stress, the room their in is really calm and fairly quiet. I do have a cat, but she's old and calm, not to mention well trained, (surpisingly, odd for a cat) and ignores the snakes (focusing more on my bird instead). As for my bird, he's tiny and isnt near the snakes, so to my knowledge he shouldnt be stressing them.....
I have fed them worms/slugs (properly sized amounts, and obviously no red wigglers) every couple days... And the room they are in stays around 70° fahrenheit during the day, and they have had a heat source one one side of the cage set to never go above 85-90 degrees. (So i dont believe they could have gotten too warm....)
......i actually just found another dead..... What the heck is going on?! There has to be an explaination....
I read somewhere else about birth defects in snakes.... If the mother was attacked or fell in the wild, could the whole clutch have been effected with defects? Is that a plausible cause?
I don't want the last one to die.... Please help!

[Zdravko092368]

What have you been feeding the babies?