.......with many, many photos!
An amazing night. I have been waiting all week for two special girls to drop.
"Del Fuego" was part of a trio of Squaretails that I imported from Germany back in 2002 (thanks Siegi & Frank!). I was forced to sell one of the males early on to cover some bills. In both the 2003 and 2004 breeding seasons, I tried to outcross the male to a beautiful thin-saddled normal. The whole litter was premature and died before my eyes last season. I am not in favor of sibling breedings but I decided it was the only breeding left that I was willing to try......Squaretail x Squaretail.....Del Fuego x her brother Omar.
"Jewel" was the first female Salmon Jungle ever produced....the result of a breeding loan between Todd Smith and Rich Ihle. I acquired her from Todd in 2002 as a baby and raised her slowly for 3 years before she was first introduced to a male. I cashed in a teaching retirement account to buy Jewel. A very controversial move.
Jewel & Del Fuego had POS within two days of each other so I knew it was a remote possibility that they could go on the same day. Technically, they didn't birth on the same day but they did let go of their babies within 3 hours of each other. Del Fuego birthed 9 Squaretails beginning at 10:15 pm on 4-24-06. I knew Jewel was close, in fact, I thought she was going to go first....very active for the last few days. I finished photographing the Squaretails babies and cleaning up Del Fuego's cage at about 12:30. I then downloaded the photos and begin working on them to create a gallery. I checked on her a couple times and she was hiding under the paper so I couldn't be sure what was going on. I finished updating my web site and sending out the news to the waiting list at about 1:30 am on 4-25-06. I stopped at Jewel's cage one last time and you can see what I saw peeking out of the paper below. It is now 5:00 am. Doesn't look like I should bother with sleep tonight. I have too much adrenaline going and my alarm goes off at 5:30 anyway. As for the results.....
Del Fuego:
She did a great job and delivered 9 beautiful Squaretail babies on day 108 POS. There were also 1 stillborn, 2 deformed, and 3 unfertilized. I was extremely fortunate to witness the birthing of all but the first few babies.
Jewel:
I'm not 100% certain since they were pretty gooey and my eyes are pretty bleary......but she had 9 live babies and 7 slugs. I definitely have 1 Salmon Super Jungle. Looks like I also have 5 Salmon Jungles, 2 Jungles, and 1 Salmon. She was day 107 POS.
This night has been very gratifying....a major understatement. Enjoy the blizzard of photos. Actually, I will just give a small sampling here. You will need to use the links to see all the good stuff.
Squaretail litter from 10:15 last night:
Super Jungle litter from 1:15 this morning:
Address for Del Fuego's Birthing Photos:
http://www.allboas.com/birthing.php?album=412&id=259
Address for Jewel's Birthing Photos:
http://www.allboas.com/birthing.php?album=413&id=258
Congrats on two jaw-dropping litters.
