O.K. so I think we've had this discussion before about pre-lay sheds in BRBs and how they're meaningless. I have always been in agreement. Then I read a post a few days ago that got me thinking (I think Bob posted a post somewhere that was originally written by Jeff Rhone). In the post he talked about a post-ovulatory shed in BCIs and used this to gauge when the babies would be born. He says babies come about 105 days after the post-ovulatory shed. I just went back to my records from last year and what do you know... I recorded sheds for two of the three females that gave birth last year. One was 107 days before she dropped. The other was 109 days. I'm thinking that the third female probably experienced the shed but I didn't record it for whatever reason.



So, this year I have three females that have gone through sheds, are refusing food and appear to be gravid. Going by this new theory, I should have babies born on August 1st, August 5th and September 1st (man I hope I'm not jinxing it).



You know, it just makes so much sense. Every other snake species has some type of shed associated with giving birth, why shouldn't our species?



Can the rest of you go back into your notes and take a look at this? I'm hoping that more of you see sheds roughly 105 - 110 days before parturition.



Thanks Jeff Rhone for turning on the light bulb!
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Mike Lockwood

www.tooscaley.com

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