4th litter of the year!

[crzy_kevo]

sorry to hear that sjoerd good luck with the cyrtopsis

[jitami]

What a rough year. Sorry Sjoerd. Will keep my fingers crossed for two nice big healthy litters coming up!

[adamanteus]

Better luck with your cyrtopsis, Sjoerd.

[Sid]

I'm sorry to hear the bad news, Sjoerd... hopefully the next ones will deliver all healthy babies.

[Snaky]

You've already had some bad luck this year...
I truly hope that you'll have more luck with the cyrtopsis.

[zooplan]

Hi Sjoerd,
I can imagine what you feel like.
I had to make some bad experiences to, as you know, but:

HOPE will never die
If there are no further and better litters this year we´ll sure look for a more successfull breeding season 2009.

[infernalis]

This makes me wonder, is the gene pool in Europe diverse enough?

Here is why I ask, if Garters are so difficult to obtain, how many sibling pairs are used for creating more snakes?? and how many generations has it been like that??

[Stefan-A]

Probably not. Then again, the cause for something like this isn't necessarily inbreeding.

[infernalis]

Probably not. Then again, the cause for something like this isn't necessarily inbreeding.

Inbreeding in itself may not be such a bad thing Stefan, but lets just use an example.

20 years down from an original pair, 10 - 12 generations of using siblings and parents to make more, would that not have a negative impact on the genetics?

[Stefan-A]

Shouldn't it only be an issue if the line was already carrying a genetic defect, in which case it would have surfaced within the first couple of generations? Or if one emerged during that time. I'd definitely like to know how big a problem inbreeding is for snakes in captivity, but it is far more likely to cause problems for humans than for rodents, for example. T. sirtalis tetrataenias in Europe can be traced back to a single pair, if you ignore the possible illegal imports. I'd like to know what the effects of inbreeding has been in their case. Judging by what I've seen here on this forum, they don't seem especially sickly or sensitive.

I don't know nearly enough about genetics, but that could be said about any subject. I'm not omniscient yet.

EDIT: Found something written by Martin Hallmen.
EGSA.de - European Garter Snake Association