I have posted about this before but I wanted to get everything in one place since I just took pictures of a couple of the breeders that made the stuff the critters I am writing about here.

So, in 2004 I acquired a pair of double het for Ghost Boas that were both produced by one of the big boy boa breeders. They were acquired from two different individuals who had purchased them from the original breeder. It is not known if these two were related or not. These two were visually Hypos and hopefully both actually het Anery as was their billing when I acquired them. I never took a picture of the male and I no longer have him. Suffice it to say, he wasn't much at all to look at. Neither is the female for that matter. Here is the female:



Nothing special right? An aberrancy about 2/3 of the way down. Nothing special but I was looking forward to making my first Ghost Boas. Finally! Well, I tried in the 2004-2005 season. Lots of courtship but no ovulation. I should mention this is a very high strung female. She is very nervous if handled and will strike at anything and I mean anything if she thinks you might get near her. She squeezes herself into the farthest reaches of a corner on the shelf of the cage to move as far away as possible if you come near. I'd call her nervous but not nasty or mean. So I was optimistic that I might be able to breed her the next year.

In the fall of 2005 I introduced the same double het for Ghost male, again he was all over her. I kept her in an upper cage so she would see as little movement as possible. Less stress increases the likelihood of successful breeding right? Well it wasn't long and she ovulated and the long wait began. Ghosts...! Finally I would be making myself a few Ghosts. I had already obtained some from Will Slough on a Rat/Boa trade but I was looking forward to making my own. Great ovulation. A textbook gestation period followed by a perfect birth June 27, 2006. Well there were two slug but I didn't mind, I was going to run my fingers through that goo and find my first Ghost Boa born on my watch! I put on my biker glove that I use to avoid a defensive bite, opened the door to confront Mom, who was in front of those babies bent on protecting them from all that might hurt them, and especially me! She had a crazed look in her eye and we locked gazes... I hesitated then cheated. Using the Boaphile’s secret weapon, the Styrofoam stick, I touched her nose and moved over the top of her head to allow me to ambush her from her blind side and avoid the bite that neither of us really needed. To that date I had never been bitten by a female after she had her young and I didn't want this time to be the first. Left hand gracefully guiding that Styrofoam, I was reaching around stealthfully with my right hand when swoosh! I was on her. Like she would have been on me if I would have let her. I had her, right behind the head with a firm and yet gentle graceful grip. Ah ha! Gotcha! She was relieved really as they often seem to be. Relieved there would not be a confrontation but just a short walk to a clean and open cage where she would soon enough have a nice warm rat and nice clean aspen to rest upon. Babies!

There were babies all over the place behind her! Actually only Or at least that's how it seemed at that moment. My huge eyes darted back and forth, front to back... I did not lay my eyes upon a Ghost yet. Perhaps a better look. I climbed closer and with my flashlight made a very careful inspection to find, no Ghosts. Not one. If fact, though a couple looked like they might be Anerythristic, there were none. Not one! Well that meant either really bad odds, or, one or maybe even both my double hets weren't het after all. Oh well... more Hypos. Here is a shot of the litter still in the goo:



Oooo... there were some goofy babies in this litter. Really funky. And there was one that, though quite big, looked like it was not quite right. It's color wasn't all there. It's pattern was kind of half baked. It was as if it had been in the oven and it had been removed before the time. You can see it in the right front in the picture above and a little better in the picture below:



It's not the one out front but the one just back a bit that hasn't broken its head out the membrane yet. Here it is separated with the other "goofy" babies after I set them up in my Boa "incubator". She is dead center in the shot below:



Obviously, this baby needed more time in Momma. Big belly full of yolk. A little yolk still outside the body too. Her head is rounded looking but maybe that's just because her pattern hadn’t come all the way in yet. That pattern isn't done yet. A lot of premature babies look like this one and don’t make it. Hypos and non-hypos alike. So, I hoped that she might make it just because she is different looking. Reminds me of “Spidey”, that Matt Rivera owns. I have always wished Spidey were mine and told Matt that a number of times on posts on line. They are identical but certainly similar. Here is a picture of “Spidey”:


Spidey

Even though she was just a freaky looking preemie, she would still be a cool looking animal if she survived and I could raise her up. If she made it. So I tried. Well, she absorbed all that yolk just like a perfectly healthy baby would. She shed just like all the other babies from that litter. In fact, instead of doing anything that I expected, she fed and has grown just like any normal Boa would. A fluke, or so I thought. Today she is a little over two years of age and 4 1/2' long. I hope maybe... maybe to breed her next year. But I am getting ahead of myself. Here she was at about six months of age:



Cool huh? Still a novelty really. Well, it's time to start thinking about breeding the Momma again. In the fall of 2006, I hadn't gotten all that weight back on her and I decided to wait to use her in the next breeding season with one of her babies to see what might happen. She had a few surprising aberrant babies so why not use one of those to breed back to her and see if we get some more crazy patterned freaky babies, right? The most aberrantly patterned baby naturally is a female. I figured I'd use the male with the most aberrant pattern in the litter. He is at the top of that picture above with a mess of babies with kind of a tail stripe. So this time, I was still holding out hope for maybe a Ghost if she is a het and if this male happened to get that trait from her. Better yet, maybe some aberrant Anerys or Ghosts from this breeding. So I just kept feeding her and the male to see if I could get him large enough to actually try to breed at 18 months.

Well, the time flies around here when you breed Boas and it was the fall of 2007 and time to start dropping those boys in to see who is going to do their duty and who isn't. To my surprise, the little guy was all over her! This was the smallest male Colombian type Boa I had ever tried to breed. He was maybe 3 1/2' long but skinny. A really thin little guy not much thicker than a quarter. On her he was though and she looked ready to go again. She stayed on the shelf constantly. I never saw them off the shelf. In fact, many times when I looked in at them, I could not see him because she has to weight about 30 times what he does, literally. Poor little fella... I marked her down on December 25th as being "really thick". This is the pre-ovulation swell and swell she did. A swell swell if I say so myself, but not ovulation yet. This guy had only been in with her for about six weeks so he had done a good job. At the same time, I had been worried about the little fella running out of gas. I wanted him to continue to breed till she actually ovulated. In years past, I have had two other females, that were much bigger than males, crush those males to death behind them against a wall. I think what has actually happened in those cases is that the boys were too stupid to come out and get a breath. Suffocated due to stupidity. Bummer. But he was fine. Here is a picture of him I just took today:



Not a real handsome fellow but interesting right? Anyhow that ovulation was just around the proverbial corner. January 5th, 2008 she ovulated! A massive ovulation that looked quite painful actually. She was up on that shelf naturally with the little guy completely concealed by her bulk. She nearly reached the top of the cage with that mass! Very impressive. I was really happy. I couldn’t wait to see the aberrant babies I hoped for. Selective breeding is not for the impatient as substantial visual results are many times generations and years off. Selective breeding is something I have worked on for a long time and I had some idea what I would get, if in fact those aberrancies were actually genetic and not some environmental anomaly like that little guy's freaky sister. Well, momma didn’t go opaque. Sometimes they don't do what I have written. They are illiterate you know and can't follow instructions very well. Finally she went opaque and shed on March 23, 2008. March 23rd. That's 78 days from ovulation! She was just trying to make me look bad. Oh well. Nothing I could do about that except wait. Now what I didn’t know was; would she give birth at about 105 days after that POS or would I see those puppies at around 124 days after that ovulation date? I would have to wait.

I suspected the earlier date I had set, May 8 would be about the time I would see those aberrant babies I was hoping for. She began to thin down and look for a nice place to have those babies where she could better protect them than she did the last time when I deceived her with that stupid Styrofoam stick! Then it happened. A few days after that expected date, there she was, all stretched out at the front lip of that shelf. This time it would be different. I could see by the look in her eyes that she was determined that I would not be the Mr. Smarty Pants that I had been before. May 12, 2008 was the date that would live in Boa infamy and she would show me how determined she was, and is. She was, well rested as she delivered them hours before. I didn’t know what was produced yet because they were all well hidden behind her. I would soon see.

I estimate the number of babies I believe will be born in each litter twice during the gestation period. At ovulation I guess the number that are in that Momma the day she ovulates. Then about two weeks before the due date, I update that estimate as I keep a running estimate of the total babies I’ll be fortunate to have for the year. Time has been a good teacher for this I must say. My first estimate was 30 babies. This time my last estimate was also 30 babies. I would soon see the truth. I put on the black leather biker glove on my right hand. I hold the Styrofoam stick in my left as I open the door of the cage. This time I touch her with the styro and uh oh! She swings her head back toward the back of the cage. She is now all stretched out on the shelf with her head around back where I can’t even see now because her body is in the way. This is going to be a bit tricky. Who will outsmart who you ask? Very good question. I poke, with that Styrofoam. I prod. I wait. Still I can’t see her head. I catch glimpses of the tip of her nose as she is looking back and forth and and I realize, she has no idea where I am! Ha! Smarty snake! Still, I don’t have her yet. Well the glove is very thick. It has been bitten a number of times but never by a post birth Momma. So the only end of her I can see and get a hold of is the back end. So I reach up carefully over her body on the back end hoping she doesn’t nail the glove… no strike. I pull part of her back end off the shelf gently and as I am, gracefully. Ah… I see lots of little heads poking up. Just as I hoped! Then like a flash she is looking out that opening straight at me at eye level and I can see her thinking, “oh there you are you big jerk!” I try the stick once more. Back she goes. She is not falling for that again. This is going to be a little more exciting than I like. I need to move her out. I could have just waited, but when there are baby Boas to be seen, and I don’t know what I am going to get, I am just like I was as an eight year old ripping open those presents looking for the Lionel train I got in 1967. The drama continued.

I just watched. I just stood there and watched her for what seemed like an hour. They often just look over the kiddies and seem to check them out. Still I waited. I waited for what seemed to be an eternity to me and finally, she came near to the edge of the shelf and let her guard down. Reaching in slowing using her own body to conceal my movements, I snuck up behind her and had my grip. Perfect! I had her and she knew it was over. Not much resistance and she seemed resigned to going to that clean cage down the isle to unwind. Me on the other had, after getting her in that cage and letting her go, I’m racing back to that cage to see what we had. My ample melon jammed up to the top of the cage over the edge of the shelf and I’m trying to see what I can see… Are there any Anerys this time? A Ghost? Crazy patterned babies!!! My reading glasses fogged up and I couldn’t see! High humidity after the birth of babies is not conducive to keeping your glasses clear when those glasses were just cool and dry. So I back up with my headlamp flashlight on and begin plucking a baby here and a baby there. Wow! I was SHOCKED!!!

I was shocked to see that I ended up with a whole mess of those premature looking babies like that one from the first litter but this time they did not have that same huge belly. I was like a kid getting TWO brand new Lionel Train sets for Christmas! I was so pumped! I was alone opening this gift, as I usually am, so I had nobody to share my excitement with at that instant. I continued to pull little critter after little critter from the shelf. Every single one of them was a Hypo so it’s likely that Dad is a Super Hypo. 24 babies, 6 slugs and 2 stillborn meant was close but off by six. I had planned on 30 and only got 24. But oh what a litter!

I did get some aberrant babies. I did get more crazy babies and as an added bonus a mess of them with pattern that was disappearing. Then it happened. I pulled this little fellow from the goo:



Yes he is a boy! I don’t mind telling you I took that baby, right then and there, whipped him off and my hands enough on my shirt, and popped him right then and there! Bling bling, it’s a boy! Double bubble no trouble! Pop… pop they go and two of them to boot!!! I was really jumping out of my skin now! I pulled the rest of those puppies off the shelf and ran upstairs with that one patternless one to show my wife. Just like a little kid am I at moments like that. She sees that little glimmer in my eye and humors me by pretending like she knows what I’m talking about as I normally just ramble incoherently. I was a happy boy.

The day the litter was born:



At two weeks of age:



At two months of age:



At four months of age:



Now. Now we have to begin figuring out how this works. I HAVE to make more of these kids and I will! The Mom and the Dad do not have patterns that give any hint that they could make babies with pattern that is disappearing. Hundreds of Hypo X Hypo breedings have been done without seeing this occur with other pairings. In fact some have done multiple generations of inbreeding without making nearly patternless babies. I wish I could say this was the result of my cleaver selective breeding, but I can’t. It’s just happened. I am obviously very happy that it has occurred. The fact is these faded babies happened twice with one female using two different males. The original male that made one really faded baby and his son, who was somewhat faded in his own right, that made a number of them, including the nearly patternless one that nearly caused me to faint. Since lightning did strike here twice now, in making babies with faded and or missing pattern, we know it’s genetic. We just don’t know yet how it will work exactly. I look forward to figuring it out though and am now wondering what to pair up that father of these babies with this year… Do I just wait or try something else? Perhaps my proven genetic aberrant Anery female that gave us a great litter this year as well… Can you tell I am having fun?!

A couple other babies from this litter:







As I look back at pictures of the babies born in 2006, I can’t help but wonder. There were twelve Hypos in the litter and seven non-hypos. Here is a picture of them all:



There does seem to be perhaps something a little different going on. It could be anyhow. Some have that faint or faded pattern to some extent while others do not. About six of them seem to have that really washed out pattern and a distinctively lighter colored tail. It makes me wish I had taken a good picture of the non-hypos before I wholesaled them out. I might be on to something. It does pay to pay attention. Time will tell…

By the way. I am calling these Místico Boas as it is to me a mystery how this happened. A wonderful mystery but a mystery nonetheless.

-----
Boaphile Home
All Original/Boaphile Plastics
The Boa Network

[ Show Entire Thread ]