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Jeff Ronne's 49 boa litter posted below brought this question to mind:

Which have the largest litters?

Assuming Boa constrictor imperitor from Colombia are the largest of the Bci, do Colombian Boa constrictor imperitor have the largest litters?

-Or-

Do Amazon Basin (Guyanan, Suriname, Peruvian, Brazil) Boa constrictor constrictor have the largest litters?

jsc

I used to have a friend that lived in Sacramento that had a big female bci that had 50 babies in two back to back litters.

Brian

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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

early to middle 1980's I had a bci that was about 7-8' long have 74 live babies!!! Chris McQuade at gcr was employed by me at the time and we both were AMAZED!! All the babies were perfect and average size...TC

Eric told me that a litter of 80 was born to a female at your business years and years ago. That number has been stuck in my head ever since. I also read about a Zoo in Canada that had a litter of 80 a number of years ago. I think that was in Slaven's Inventory of Live Reptiles.
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sure it was an exact 74 babies. If I can figure out how to do it I will post a pic of the largest boa I've ever had or seen. Its a 14' plus Suriname that has to be seen to believe. I have an 8" x 10" framed of it. It would shock most of you....TC

I have heard of that one. I would love to see that picture! The largest one I have seen is about 12'. That one was more like a Burm is size than any Boa I have ever seen. Have some Geek scan that picture and then you should be able to post it. That would be great!
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I had a colombian het albino drop 57 this year.

Litter size is generally a factor of the size of the female and what locality type the female is. The largest litter I have had was a litter of 64 from a ten foot 65 lb Colombian female I had named Sarah.

You can look to some averages but there will always be instances that do not fit the mold. Peruvians, Surinames and Guyanan Boas tend to have large young in lower numbers relative to an equally sized Colombian. South Brazilian, Bolivian and smaller Central American localities tend to have smaller babies and higher numbers of young. The South Brazilians and Bolivians I have produced have all had large numbers of tiny babies for me. The Peruvians have always had small litters of huge babies. Colombians are generally someplace in between. These are very broad generalities though and not "rules".

A typical litter for a six foot Colombian will be around 18-20 babies. A seven foot Colombian is going to about 22-25 babies. An eight footer will have around 32-35. Again these are broad generalities. I have had a number of litters from 9' plus Het for Albino litters and have never had a litter larger than 32. I think sometimes the numbers of offspring within a bloodline tend to run in the genes. I like to raise the babies that came from large litters relative to the size of the mother of those babies.

I had a 5 1/2' female named Lois that gave birth to 28 tiny full term babies in 1989. The original Monster Tail gave birth to 32 babies when she was about 5 1/2' and 53 babies and six slugs when she was about 6 1/2'. One of Lois' baby girls had 36 babies at 6' while it was a Monster Tail Hypo, born to the original Monster Tail in 2000 in that litter of 32 that gave birth to 50 tiny babies without swelling up hardly at all this past year. She is not eight feet yet. So that's two Colombian Bloodlines that tend to make lots of tiny babies.

Bottom line, It's like someone once said, "Life is like a brand spanking new Black Boaphile full of baby Boas. You never know what you are gonna get..."
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A big boa litter is awesome, my biggest litter so far was 43 babies from a salmon x colombian.

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Richard Ceniceros

Thanks guys. Great stuff.
jsc

I had a BCI given birth to 53 baby´s and 7 month later to 48 babys a total of 101 babys..the female was 25 years at the time
and around 3 meters.