Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,
Well this season has been really bad for me, I've lost 3 clutches of high-End Kingsnake eggs and today I came home to see my Red Albino Plains who was bred to a snow plains male, laid a ton of slugs (looks like orange jelly Beans) Has this happened to anyone else, I'm just curious what I did wrong so it doesn't happen again..

Thanks for your help..
Bill Black

Could be a lot of things.Temp, diet,brumation time.

Well I feed her ft fuzzies/Hoppers, once or twice a week, I have her in a 30 gallon breeder tank with large heat pad, I brumated her for 2 months.. I was just curious about this because I have bred garters before and never had a problem..

Thanks,
Bill

that you didn't brumate at a low enough temperature. Although I've never bred snakes, supposedly if the male isn't cooled down sufficiently enough, their sperm is not viable.

I would ditch thr heating pad and go with overhead basking light.I don't recommend racks for females either.I keep brumation temps from 40-50 f.low 40's are preferred.low 70's during the first 3 weeks of pregnancy and low 80's the rest of pregnancy.This seems to give me high females though.
Tom

Thanks guys,
I think it may have been due to brumation temps not being low enough for the male and maybe even the female..

Thanks for your help,
Bill

Bill,

Sorry to hear the female didn't produce for you. The jelly beans are unfertilized eggs AKA jelly beans. What I've found to work well to successfuly breed garters is a "3 days in and 1 day out" routine. Combine them for 3 days and on the fourth day seperate them. This way they don't get too "buddy buddy" with each other. Also if you have multiple males you can rotate to the female, that will vastly increase your odds of getting a viable brood.

Scott

Our garter snake delivered yesterday - 2 slugs, 4 healthy babies, one dead baby.

I think it's heat. If they are cold during incubation/gestation, they don't develop. Or anyway, that's what the snake guy said who gave us this gravid female - be sure she is kept warm.

Do you have a heat lamp or an environment where she was kept at 78 degrees or higher her entire gestation?

Best wishes next time.

Hello,
Thanks Scott I will try that next time, It was a shame because I know the babies would have turned out to be screamers because the female is XMAS looking (very Orange) and the Male a Snow..I did have another male reg. Albino in the aquirium but the snow male was doing all the breeding..

Also, She was kept warm, the spot where the heat pad was got up to 90 degrees, I have now replaced the heat pad with a heat lamp..I may just end up putting my garters in a rack system, not sure yet what the best set up would be..but from what I hear garters are fine with a hot side of 80-82 and cool side low 70"s during the summer, even when females are gravid..

Bill

it seems like this should be simpler. Garter snakes are as common as toads or sparrows.

Maybe in captivity we're trying too hard to produce unusual things. Typically, without racks and heating and cooling times, garter snakes do just fine.

Maybe we should leave well enough alone and not try to produce unusual varieties.