Who likes big girls?

[ConcinusMan]

Some just get fat and throw jelly beans and some, throw stills.

Odd. In 25+ years I've never had that happen and 2010 was the first time I had ever got an unfertilized egg and even that was part of a large healthy litter. Stills have happened, yes, but just a few in a normal live litter.

But of course, I've never bred snakes that were result of generations of selective breeding/inbreeding either. Just seems to me that the tendency in captivity is to breed snakes anyway when they have these problems,(just for the sake of preserving the morph even though you're also passing on fertility problems) and especially if you get very few surviving offspring, they get bred whereas in the wild, a snake with fertility problems is not likely to have any of her very few live offspring survive long enough to breed because her numbers are low which greatly reduces or eliminates the chances that any will still be around as adults.

[Jeff B]

Fertility issues occur even with wild caught, and they are certainly not unique to garters, or morphs. So Richard how many litters have you produced in your "25+" years of breeding garters? Must be at least 25 right?

[twgrosmick]

While I will agree with Jeff they are not unique to garters there is certainly a correlation between inbreeding and fertility issues. Morphs have nothing to do with it. The problem comes with inbreeding. Breeding generations of siblings to siblings as opposed to outcrossing and spending a few extra years doing it the right way. Doesn't matter if he has had five or twenty-five litters. The fact of the matter is Jeff that there aren't enough people outcrossing and as a result fertility rates are low and litter sizes are small... It doesn't take years of breeding to understand that...

[snakeman]

The shuett albino have been outcrossed into ten different lines. My fertility rates are great. It's all how you cool your snakes and how long.

[Jeff B]

Tyler, you are really just arguing with yourself. If you read my post I never refute the fact that inbreeding is a compounding factor, nor that it is not an issue in the hobby. Tom, I think that conditioning and brumations could be a factor. Would you mind sharing what your ideal brumation conditions are?

[twgrosmick]

There are breeders that don't brumate at all and have high success rates. I don't see how I am "arguing with myself." You completely ignored the fact in your original post that inbreeding is a factor and you jump right to the defense of "it happens in the wild." In captivity brumation is used as a stimulation to get the breeding process going. Once the courting process is complete its a matter of making sure the proper temperatures are maintained for the female to develop the babies. I hope Mike doesn't mind me mentioning his name, but during his first garter breeding, after little brumation other than tossing them in a box in a "cooler closet" had a litter of 13 infernalis, no still borns, no undeveloped babies. It is a matter of outcrossing and just as important maintaining the proper temperatures to allow the babies to form correctly in the mother. Anyone that breeds live bearers knows its all about temperatures. Just like eggs need to be incubated at certain temperatures, a pregnant female needs to have specific temperatures to properly develop the babies.

[BLUESIRTALIS]

Your right about that i caught a very plump gravid female last year in her late stages of pregnancy that produced 14 slugs and 0 babies so it happens in the wild! I have also had wild garters throw a few stillborns and deformities. I think one reason you see more slugs or stillborns in captive bred litters is because for one on this site we see a lot more captive litters being born. I do agree that there is a lot of things to factor in though like cooling temps and brumation lengths as well as the females body temps while she is producing young. I don't think we will ever know all of the answers though and may do everything right and still get a bad litter or two so at the end of the day all we can do is strive to do everything that we know is right.

fertility issues occur even with wild caught, and they are certainly not unique to garters, or morphs. So richard how many litters have you produced in your "25+" years of breeding garters? Must be at least 25 right?

[snakeman]

I put them in the fridge around the end of august.leave the door cracked about an inch.it stays between 45 and 50 degrees.once it gets cold enough 50 to 55 in the one corner of my basement.I take them out and leave them there I until after christmas.unless they look skinny then i may pull them out early.I think slugs have a lot to do with the male. Some males just never do the job.I hsve a theory that popping them may cause damage.just a theory.over the years I have had a fair amount of snakes that just wouldn't produce.I never attributted it to inbreeding.these morphs have been crossed into all kinds of crap by felzer and myself.good luck finding a blais flame nowadays.

[snakeman]

You could get away with sticking infernalis in a cooler closet.they don't need to brumate like the colder climate sub species do.

[Selkielass]

My wild caught snakes (eastern and t. Butlerii) did not reproduce the year I didn't cool them.
The butlers showed no interest in mating. My eastern threw a bunch of jelly and one stillborn. (My confining clue that her cagemate was actually male, despite its unusually large size.)

I cooled them last winter, but not for anywhere as long as mentioned above. I never observed any courtship, but the girls are looking big. I'm just hoping for some lively young 'uns. I do hope to sucessfully breed Butlers, but even with wild born survivors, there seems to be multiple parts to the equation.

Good luck to everyone.