The topic of crossbreeds/hybrids in the garter community comes up often. It’s generally the new people in the community that bring it up. In other areas of the reptile community, hybrids are commonplace, so why not garters too?
My current position on this is that there is no good reason to do it and more harm than good comes from it. The main factor for me is that this notion isn’t new. Garters have been bred in captivity for decades and MANY hybrids have been created and very few, have resulted in attractive animals. This is why people stopped. If amazing offspring were produced, those folks would have continued…and they didn’t
What harm comes from it? Well, I think I have a first hand example. Several months ago, I paired two easterns with similar lineage , including parents that were erythristic and diffused. While I didn’t produce either of these animals, I know and trust the breeder completely.
The offspring of this pairing have a lot of red…too much red, and the wrong shade, to be erythristic. See video.
So what happened here? I can’t say for sure but I suspect that one or both of these animals or their parents, were crossed with either a parietalis or infernalis.
While I can’t prove that this theory is correct, I also cannot explain why they look the way that they do.
For that reason, I believe that the responsible thing to do is call them hybrids. So far, I have rehomed 2 of the babies to two separate homes where they will not be bred.
So now I have a single or perhaps pair of easterns that I don’t know exactly what’s in them. That’s the harm. I’ve got to spend time now, breeding the two separately to determine if it’s one or both that are hybrids, or retire them from breeding.
The notion that people will disclose this information is quite frankly, an unreasonable expectation. It is quite possible that the people involved didn’t even know.
In conclusion: when you know, disclose it. If you’re not sure, disclose it. Do the right thing