Posted by:
JDouglas
at Sun May 29 00:24:56 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by JDouglas ]
This was year breeding boas and it was a real learning experience to say the least. We attempted to breed a pair of het albino possible het snow boas. Evertything went as expected with the cooling, courting, and copulation. I didn't see an ovulation but I did witness a gradual swelling that seemed to dissapear a few weeks after the male lost interest leading me to beleive she wasn't going to produce this year.
We waited and waited for a post ovulation shed and it never happened. She didn't appear gravid and had a very strong feeding response so we decided to sell her and her mate to fund another project. This was a big mistake...
Yesterday I received an email from the new owner saying she was having babies and he wanted to know what we had bred her to. He said that she had dropped 3 anerythristics proving both parents are het for snow. Even though I was a little upset that I had sold a pair of het snows for a fraction of their worth and that someone else was reaping the rewards of my previous efforts I congratulated the new owner. He said she hadn't finisned and I let him know that he may end up with a snow boa.
Had I known she was gravid I would have surely kept her and her mate. We shipped her to her new owner in Wisconsin who then resold her and shipped her to her new owner in Minnesota. Despite all of this she still managed to have babies. I find this to be quite remarkable. Does anyone else have advice on how to tell if a boa is gravid? For heaven's sakes this boa was owned by three different keepers during her pregnancy and none of us knew she was gravid. What were we missing?
IMO the information on breeding boas is very limited, misleading, and sometimes downright confusing. Everyone does it differently and has different methods. Why is it that the majority of the information about breeding boas says that females shed after they ovulate? I have watched videos, read books, and seen several posts stating that boas will shed after ovulating and have babies about 105 days later. None of the information I have seen says or even hints that they can can have babies without having a POS except for Gus Rentfro's website which IMO is the best info out there.
I feel that this lack of information is very misleading and should be addressed. All new breeders should know that a POS is not going to happen every time and they can have babies without shedding after ovulation.
A friend of mine, IAHerper, also bred boas for the first time this year and his female also did not have a POS. She had 18 babies and one slug. So how common is this?
How many of you have had boas give birth without POS?
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Jaremy Douglas
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 First time breeding and ? about shedding after POS.... - JDouglas, Sun May 29 00:24:56 2005
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