Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have one of my girls that is driving me crazy whether she is gravid or not. I called a friend of mine who is a vet and she has offered to do a sonogram for me on Monday. Problem is, she specializes in cats. Has anyone had a sonogram on a boa and can tell me what to look for.. or better yet a sonogram of a gravid boa?

I have been looking online but have not found anything.

Thanks
Shawn Morelan

Oh yea.. the cam is in her cage this morning so if you want to see which one I am talking about, click on the Live Boa Cam Link. One day she looks huge and bloated like she maybe gravid and the next not. So confusing.
Live Boa Cam at SouthernBoids

Shawn,

In Dr. Mark Sewards ball python breeding videos they demonstrate giving ultrasounds to gravid Ball Pythons. Granted, this is completely different from boas but if it can be done on balls, I don't see why it wouldn't work on boas. Only difference is you are looking for embryos themselves instead of just eggs. In fact, in the video they were even looking at the development of follicles prior to being fertilized!

good luck, and post some pictures of what you find if you can.
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mark

interesting thought. i work at a vets office and after reading you post took one of my boas into work and played around with the ultrasound maching for a while my boa is not gravid but after ultrasounding him and seeing everything clearly i cant imagine why you wouldnt be able to tell with an ultrasound we have several different ultrasound machines at work and of course the better the machine the easier it was to identify things i dont have a scanner otherwise i would post some of the images that i got let us know how things work out ohh one more thought if the vet is used to small animal ultrasound it would probally be helpful to take a moment and quickly familiarize your self with basic snake anatomy again good luck

I will be anxiously waiting for your replies and hope you keep us posted. I have access to sonagram, but wasn't sure how reliable it would be. My quess is that it would be easy to do.....if she'll stay still for at least 45 seconds at a time.

I was fortunate enough to watch them ultrasounding boas when I visited at Jeremy Stone's. It is so cool!!!! The babies and slugs are very easy to see. They look much clearer on ultrasound than horse fetuses.....hahaha! Don't quote me, but I watched Gaylynn do this: She would start up kind of high (mostly on the right side) and work down until she found the gall bladder which shows up as a solid looking black blob (to me) then as she slowly moved it downward.....voila!!!....little curled up snakelings....you can easily see their little spines and then if you hold it really still, you can see their hearts beating - and the fluid going back and forth. The slugs show very plainly too......plain enough to count.....

They put their boas in a large shallow tub of lukewarm water and the boas actually hold pretty still for it. A lot quieter than I thought they would be.

Let us know how it goes.