[cornsnakesalive]

I have never produced a single Garter, but I was thinking about this today because just about ALL of the litters of Garters that have been posted recently had some defects. In breeding is certainly a way to find fatal genes if they are there, but doesn’t cause kinking. If no fatal genes exist in the line, in breeding alone wouldn’t cause it, plus I suspect Garters in-breed more than most species of snakes.

What about insufficient heat gradients available for the females? I keep my Corn Snake egg incubation conditions well regulated. I know when I bred Boas, the females internal thermostat kept them moving constantly to maintain what mother nature told them was the perfect temperature to incubate the eggs inside her. I have been watching some gravid female Garters near my house, and they are really spending a lot of time on some pretty hot rocks, but get cooled at night. I bet if a captive Garters cage is too hot, or if she doesn’t have the opportunity to get her temp up to the levels she wants too, it sure can’t help her babies any.

I am a shoe box and sweeter box Corn Snake breeder, but I think it would be very difficult to create the perfect conditions in a sweeter box to incubate Garter babies properly. I think if they are set up with a nice temp gradient and a hot spot, the females would incubate them perfectly and this would at least eliminate this possible cause of defects.