This is the premature baby from the litter. It was alive but still inside the membrane when I found it. There was quite a bit of soft yellow yolk material inside the membrane with the baby. The snake weighed 22 grams in comparison to the healthy babies in the litter which all weighed 29 to 31 grams. This snake had several kink deformities. Premature baby BRBs like this one are delivered at a rate of about one per hundred live healthy babies. Someone who had no experience with the birth of snakes might see this and think that it was amelanistic or hypomelanistic. Baby snakes have very little color until the last week or so before they are born or hatched. They develop the pattern fairly early in gestation but remain very pale until the last week of development. There was one stillborn fullterm baby in the litter which was approximately the same size as the healthy babies and had the same color. Rather than being delivered in the membrane most fullterm stillborn BRBs are delivered dead or near dead outside the membrane and they are probably the result of broken membranes which allow the baby to drown before it can be delivered. I have many times attempted to revive stillborn BRBs using external heart massage and mouth to mouth resuscitation. I have also intubated them with small bore human and veterinary catheters down through their glottis. These attempts have all failed. Occasionally a baby BRB is born that is outside the membrane and limp but breathing a little. These babies sometimes come around and are fine an hour after they are born.

[ Show Entire Thread ]