Thought this issue might have occurred with some of you breeding really large B.c. sp. specimens. Had a large female green anaconda drop young early yesterday morning. I am typically able to easily check on her two or three times per day with no problem. But yesterday I wasn’t able to check on her until late that evening. It had been almost 24 hours since I had last checked in on her. From the looks of the unit, it appeared that they had probably been born 15 to 20 hours earlier. There were 9 slugs, 16 live young, and 4 dead young that appeared to have been crushed by the female as she moved about the unit. All the dead were of normal length and weight, no visible abnormalities, and appeared to have been born healthy and alive. There were probably a few more slugs, but I could tell that she had eaten some, so I don’t have a full count on them. Was curious as to whether any of you had experienced this with really large females boas that had been with the young for an extended period after giving birth. I’m definitely not complaining however, as I am more than happy to see the successful birth of the others.

This is the third litter for this particular female since 2003. It was also the first breeding for the young male that I used which I had raised from a previous unrelated litter that Jud McClanahan and I produced in 2001 using a different captive born female and his large captive born male. Jud produced another litter of greens a few weeks ago. That litter and this one are both third generation captive bred and born greens, the first I believe to be actually documented in a private collection. The neonates are between 750 and 800 mm (29 to 31 inches) and are between 240 and 260 grams. They are all quite calm and none struck as they were pulled from the mothers unit. Below are a few photos showing the neonates and the four that didn’t make it with a few slugs. Thanks again for looking.

Kelly

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