Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Welcome to kingsnake.com's message board system. Here you may share and discuss information with others about your favorite reptile and amphibian related topics such as care and feeding, caging requirements, permits and licenses, and more. Launched in 1997, the kingsnake.com message board system is one of the oldest and largest systems on the internet.

Click for 65% off Shipping with Reptiles 2 You
Click for ZooMed

DEFORMED BABIES.. graphic pics and Q's

reptimals May 14, 2006 09:15 PM

well i had my first litter of the year .. it was my male hypo nic to my best looking highest contrast female nic., the litter was premature...

she had

1 still born hypo nic
1 hypo baby born with no eyes
1 hypo baby born with its brain developed out of its head, which was even still alive..
About 10 unfertilized eggs
3 live babies - not including the live one with no eyes ..

only two of the babies are alive and well at this point ...

My questions are .. What are the causes of premature birth? what are the possible causes of deformities? is it due to heating? feeding? Lighting? water? etc...

i would really like to get any insight and i understand that their might not be any definite answers for the causes .. but any thoughts would help .. THANKS ...

Replies (6)

ajfreptiles May 14, 2006 09:20 PM

Just to take a guess...I would say, that the slugs in the picture show one from a previous year...and one from this year....were there other old slugs inside? They are what I believe cause the bad deformed babies....of course poor cage design and heating factors could also have an affect on the boas. Hope this helps, Andy
-----

JOEP123 May 14, 2006 09:29 PM

Souds just right
-----
Joel Pretz

reptimals May 14, 2006 09:46 PM

Hey, thanks for the feedback .. this was her first litter .. i did notice how bad that slug was also .. it was the only one that was like that in the litter .. u think she could of ovulated last year even though she didnt breed and retained this egg and wouldnt u think there would be more?

it was so sad to see that one deformed baby moving .. i just wanna do my best to prevent anything like this again in the future... thanks

ajfreptiles May 15, 2006 06:37 AM

Well....she would have had to be old enough to have been bred and slugs can get left behind...That is my understanding. Andy
-----

PastelDream May 15, 2006 09:41 AM

I'm sorry to hear how your first litter turned out. It's always sad when these things happen. As far as "what went wrong"....

I'd "guess" either "temps" or "bacterial infection". Since your boa has never given birth before a bacterial infection "could" account for the strange color on the "infertal ova". After all, cages do get dirty during the breeding season. Normally we don't interrupt them just to clean the cage. So, build up of bacteria in the cage "could" happen. Even if your cage cleaning was done regularly it could still be bacterial. Of course, the main culprit would have been the temps in this case. If the temps are too low or too high she might have a larger amount of infertile ova. Some of this infertile ova might go "bad" inside the female. This could cause a bacterial infection. Although the mother wouldn't be adversly affected the babies would be. That would account for the deformed babies.

If you really want more insight as to what went wrong you should take some of the deformed babies and a few of the ova to the vet. They can run test to see if bacteria was present and get you a better idea of what went wrong. BTW since she did have a LOT of infertile ova it's a good idea to take her to the vet to get check. Especially since the color of that one infertile ova was so strange.

BTW I had a litter that was almost exactly the same several years ago. The female was fine afterwards. I breed her the next year and she became gravid/pregnant. Then the female died halfway through her gestation period. She died of a bacterial infection caused by "retained ova" from the previous year. A vet check after that bad litter "could" have saved her life. I just assumed she was OK. That assumption ultimately led to her death.

I'm not saying the same thing could happen to your female. I'm just saying it's possible and it does happen.

Paul Hollander May 15, 2006 04:35 PM

Hard luck!

Vitamin/mineral deficiencies are possibilities, as well as the other suggestions. Breeder females of most species need greater amounts than non-breeders. Deficiencies are known to cause infertility, still births, and birth defects.

All of this is true for trout, humans, and chickens, to name only three. In my opinion, it is likely to be true for snakes, too. I think that we still have a lot to learn about reptile nutrition.

Here's a reference you might like to dip into:
Vitamins in animal and human nutrition
by McDowell, L. R.
Ames : Iowa State University Press, 2000.
2nd ed.
ISBN: 0813826306

Paul Hollander

Site Tools