in mourning

[garterchick]

my male flame died! he was in the fridge with all the other adult garters and he looked fine every day but last night he was all twisted and when i took him out i realized that he had died. this is terrible news! i realy liked this guy and was looking forward to seing his offspring next year. my flames were my best chance for babies because they were the only ones that even attempted breeding this year, regardless of not being wintered correctly. now i don't know what to do. should i take the rest of the snakes out of the fridge? the temp. is a steady 45 deg. and all the other snakes look fine. what could i have done wrong? they have plenty of substrate to burrow in, although they're not doing it, they have water, like i said, the temp is exactly 45 all the time, they were all off feed for 3 weeks before i cooled them down and i did that gradually to avoid temp shock, what else is there?

[adamanteus]

Tina, I'm so sorry to hear that! It sounds as though you did everything right. Why do these things happen?

[drache]

oh Tina
I'm so sorry - this is so hard
there's just never any guarantees, is there?
it so sucks though

[krystalirelan@southslope.]

I'm sorry for the loss of your flame, Tina. It is especially hard when everything is going well and then you lose him suddenly.
We just lost 2 corn babies. (Hatched July) One never ate and the other finally ate 3 weeks ago but then regregitated it and never ate again. Even though we were pretty sure what the out come would be we were still very sad.
Hang in there.

[Lori P]

Ohhhhh I'm so sorry to hear this... how very disapointing.

[anji1971]

Sorry to hear the sad news, Tina.

[Sid]

Sorry about the bad news, Tina. I lost one last night too. My largest male Eastern. No noticable reason....seemed great yesterday and gone today. It happens. regretably

[adamanteus]

Sorry Sid.

[anji1971]

Not a good day for garters.........sorry to hear that Sid.

[ssssnakeluvr]

Sorry for your loss. unfortunately that happens, normal healthy snakes die in hibernation. I hve lost a few over the years, Scott Felzer has lost a number also. It's not known why they die, it just happens. there is a certain level of mortality in hibernation in the wild also.... it sucks too!!!!!