Birth defects

[Zephyr]

Hmm. I blame inbreeding. Seeing as two members claim having snakes with this upside-down disorder, both being albino checkereds, I'd see it as a result of the breed. I'm pretty sure that to get an albino checkered garter snake, like many of the corn snake varieties, there was inbreeding. Probably heavy inbreeding, seeing as not many people are into garter as compared to ball puthons or corn snakes, and a pair of albinos would have been hard to come by.

[anji1971]

I'm not saying that it's cute and endearing meaning that I think it's a great thing to try to collect snakes with defects of some sort. I'm saying it to point out that everyone looks at these things differently.
Obviously, if I were really into breeding and research on garters, I would not look upon this as favourable, necessarily.
BUT.... as a regular girl who just loves snakes, I would definitely give one like this a chance to live as best it could. Both members who have these little upside down snakes are obviously quite attached to them, and since they are the ones who care for them on a regular basis and they don't seem to feel the snakes are suffering, then I have to go with the instinct of those owners.
In this case, for them and myself, it's probably just that we see these critters and have a soft spot for them -- they really are sweet to us, and I see nothing 'worrisome' about feeling that way.

[zooplan]

and a pair of albinos would have been hard to come by.

albino checkereds are quite common yet, but people allways like the easy way and breed the pure line instead of mating thier albinos to the most beautyful nominat specimens.

The amelanistiv red sided I´m breeding are 3th to 5th generation of closest inbreding and I hope I can get the first own hets from an unrelated female this year.