Posted by:
HerperHelmz
at Mon Aug 29 18:18:20 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by HerperHelmz ]
lol. This year was sooooo bad for me involving eastern garter snakes I just had to share.
I got 0.2 Eastern Garter adults on loan, 1 was a Melanistic, and 1 was a spectacular Blue from NY. I planned on breeding them to my 1.0 Wagner stock Melanistic.
Well about 2 months into his hibernation, he shed, and his shed was bad because he had nothing to start it on, and the water in his bowl was too cold to start it. So instead of risking losing him, I took him out of hibernation for 2 days while he got the rest of it off. And back into hibernation he went.
I assume that was my first mistake. Because then he only spent about a month in hibernation. I didn't think it would affect him.
I brought the mels. out on the same day, got the blue fresh out of hibernation a week before. The mels. ate whatever I offered them, the blue didn't. It took an extra month and a half before she ate, I got her to eat about 8 of the biggest salamanders I could find, one was this HUGE 8" mud salamander. After that she was taking f/t scented hoppers with no problems.
So I paired them off. I put the blue in the male's enclosure, 10 minutes later, they started mating. A week later, I did the same with the melanistic female, and they started mating. So far so good.
Well.... nothing became gravid, and the mel. female was not able to put on any weight no matter what she ate, and how much she ate. For some reason, the blue garter went off feed about 2 months ago, and died about 2 weeks ago. Still not sure as to why. Then the mel. female died 2 days ago. I suspect she had some internal parasites of some sort which is why she couldn't put on weight and most of the time she regurgitated every 1/10 meals.
Talk about a bad year. I have 2.1 Melanistic Easterns that will be breeding next year. Then I just have to grow up my 1.1 Erythristic Easterns, 1.0 Flame Eastern, and my 1.1 Het Albino possible het melanistic and snow. Then I'm set. 
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Mike
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
Helmz777@aol.com
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake
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 This year garter snakes = Disaster - HerperHelmz, Mon Aug 29 18:18:20 2005
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