In my post on august 31st about fetal heart tones I mentioned that in one snake I could only find one fetal heart tone. I guessed that she might be carrying mostly slugs. The snake was Borba and this is what I found checking on her tonight.
Lots of slugs with two stillborn on the left side of the PIC. The stillborns were in the pile with everything else but I moved them to see if there was any sign of life. One of the healthy babies is crawling in the pile of slugs and another healthy one is still inside the membrane with just the forward part of it's body out. That snake was breathing but was lethargic and came around with some prodding. In the past I have tried unsuccessfully to revive stillborns many times. Nothing, including external cardiac compressions, drugs and rescue breathing has worked.
At least there were the cute healthy babies.
Borba did the typical BRB post partum bulldozer thing through everything like she was looking for something.
Whats this she found? One of the stillborns. In hundreds of litters of baby snakes this is the first I have ever seen this. She had nosed one of the live babies but as soon as it moved she left it alone. They often eat slugs.
This litter sucks big time but as in all failures there are small lessons to be learned.
