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These pictures are of the tail of my 02 female eastern indigo.
I was always curious about the shape of her tail it seemed to be somewhat stubby but didn't really give it a lot of thought because she was my 1st indigo & I didn't have anything to compare her to. When I got my 03 female I was able to compare their tails & found the tail of the new snake to be much more evenly tapered. I'm still not overyly concerned about it but, I would like to know if you've ever seen anything like it before & if so, do you see it as a problem?

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Looks like a developmental problem, either genetic or a problem(temp) created during incubation. I have seen this same problem in several snakes. Some problems occur just above the vent, some just below like yours. Snakes feed and grow, however when it occurs in females it can cause problems when depositing eggs. Good luck. Dwight

I've never had this "shape" cause a problem...It's not all that uncommon...Sometimes it's exagerated in a "well fed" specimen too..
See what happens as it grows...Most likely it will disappear with growth...It might help if you sent the pictures to the "ask a vet" site on the indigo home page...Dr Mader might give you a better answer then us...Carl
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Carl W Gossett
Garage Door Herps
Monument,Colorado...northern territory of the Great Republic of Texas

What you have is an extremely common condition in eastern indigos that are incubated at too high temps.

It usually gets less noticeable as time goes on, and usually (but not always) dissapeard entirely within about 2 years as the snake grows.

If it's at / below the vent, it shouldn't effect breeding, and I'm pretty confident that it is not genetic, but incubation temp related.

Hope this helps...

Thanks Dean & everyone else who replied. I wasn't "too" worried about it but, I can't say that I wasn't at all concerned. You have helped to easy my mind. Thanks also to you Rob for being so gracious & offering to replace her. Even if everyone had said that she shouldn't be bred, i'm not sure I could've given her up since i've had her for over a year now.

God bless!

Eric

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Carl W Gossett
Garage Door Herps
Monument,Colorado...northern territory of the Great Republic of Texas