I am building my collection for what i hope will be a successful breeding business in the future. I started out with corns, and am now looking in to garters. I have noticed that the garters don’t have morphs like the corns do. Is there a reason for this or are they just not as popular as the corns are? They actually seem to be more expensive than the corns are. I’m looking at a pair of extreem blue California red sided garters and also see an adult female Oregon orange spotted garter that is very similar in markings. Is there a reason that the two species can’t be bred? Will they produce non viable or sterile offsping?
Garters are pretty uncommon in the hobby, and while they mostly don’t have morphs, they have locales. Locales are basically different mutations that are endemic to a specific area, like Cali red sideds and FL blues. There’s really not much difference between locales and interbreeding is usually harmless from a health standpoint. However the question of mixing locales for genetic health/preservation does come up, so it’s important to consider that as well. Also I don’t really recommend putting a lot of trust in raising garters at first, especially if you start small. They’re more prone to randomly dying than most commonly kept species so it is something to be aware of. Pomegranate Exotics does a lot of work with garters so it may be worth checking them out on Instagram and asking questions as well as doing more research!
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Garters aren’t as widely bred as corns and they have morphs but they are extremely hard to find. Theoretically you might be able to cross breed those two garters but I strongly recommend not trying. Breeding subspecies together can muddy the genetic pool and cause problems.
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Gopher your pet has so much albino checkered garters
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