Who likes big girls?

[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...

[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?