Often times, these forums become just a picture gallery. I LOVE IT when there are pictures galore. But we also come here to learn. This is my contribution to that. I thought some may appreciate this as they try to learn more about boas and breeding them. I know I would have studied pics like this with a magnifying glass back before I ever bred any boas together.
I absolutely do NOT consider myself a breeder or even someone with more answers than questions. I'm the opposite! I'm just a hobbyist who has more questions than answers and is trying his best to learn what he can. I consider myself VERY lucky to have produced a few litters of BCC. Here's a picture tour of how my latest litter came to be.
Introduction 2/27
The male is laying on the back half of the female so her body is depressed a bit back there, but you can see how "squared off" she is. Like a loaf of bread. She doesn't look like she spent the last 6 years at an all you can eat buffet (no flat tire look and NO tail rings) and she's only about 5'9" at this time. She weighed about 9 lbs if I remember correctly.
Preovulation swelling 3/10 (less than 2 weeks later)
Notice the "squared off" look is gone in favor of this rotund body shape in the middle third of her body
More swelling 4/1
Notice the slight lean and again, her body is not square.
OOPS! Missed! 4/10
This is why I had a slug in the litter! lol
6 days prior to ovulation - 4/11
Notice the slight vertical bulge and also notice that the male isn't CONSTANTLY going to work on her, but is keeping active.
about a day and a half prior to ovulation - 4/16
Notice that she has darkened substantially and is VERY wide. Compare her midbody to her upper body in the upper right corner of the pic. The upper part of her body still has that square look while the middle of her body looks like she's eaten a HUGE meal.
A few ovulation pics on 4/17
The swelling goes from not only horizontal during ovulation, but also very often (and maybe always, I don't know) they swell vertically. Notice the scale separation.
If this pic was larger, you could see that he's still spurring her
It looks like someone surgically implanted a balloon and then blew it up! SWEEEEET!
Sorry about the urates. I wasn't going to interupt them 
Interestingly, 3 days after ovulation, I witnessed them copulating...??
fast forward 3.5 months. This is 103 days after ovulation and 85 days post-ovulation shed
116 days after ovulation, 98 days POS
135 days after ovulation, 117 days POS
BIRTH!!! 144 days after ovulation, 126 days POS
Some notes:
She swelled and went down several times throughout the entire courting process. When she "went down", she was always just a tad bigger than she was before swelling.
I fed her twice during the almost 2 month time period. Both times she ate a medium rat when she normally takes an XL or jumbo. I also fed the male VERY small meals at those two intervals.
If you decide to try to breed some animals and you see swelling, KEEP THE MALE IN THERE!!! Swelling isn't always an ovulation. It's a natural part of the process and is a VERY good thing
I noticed the male wrapped over the female like we frequently see in breeding pictures, but he was rhythmically pulsing (or squeezing) his body around hers. Just a quick movement every 5-20 seconds or so. I also saw the tell-tale tail-waving that generally indicates copulation during this time. I also noticed both events separately.
Because I bred her back to back years, I was very consistent in feeding her during gestation. I fed every 10-12 days for the first 70 days. Most people who feed will do so for 50 days, but they're also generally breeding BCI. BCC tend to have a gestation period about 20 days longer than BCI (from what I hear and from what I've experienced). So I fed until about 50 days before expected parturition. Please note, I fed medium rats during gestation when she normally gets XL rats or sometimes as large as a jumbo rat. From what I've read, feeding too large a meal during gestation can have DISASTEROUS results. Interestingly, she never had a BM during gestation. No pre-birth waxy stool (she did last year) and as of today, 3 days after parturition, still no BM. She's either hanging on to all of it or she TOTALLY utilized every bit of that food.
I frequently noticed the male placing his head on top of hers and pressing it down. It looked as though he was trying to subdue her and keep her from moving. Kind of like cats do when breeding when they bite the back of the females neck.
Towards the end of gestation, the female would consistently lay on top of her cloaca. It reminded me of how people will cross their legs when the have to pee. It made me think she was trying to subdue an urge. I also noticed that she would remain in one spot in the cage, but she constantly moved around and changed positions. Very restless. It just seemed like she couldn't get comfortable. And to top it off, again towards the end of gestation, I noticed she would burry her head in her coils. I felt horrible for her!! I just knew she was hating life!
So that's about it. I noticed a LOT more but I don't want to ruin ALL the fun for those that haven't bred boas together. It's probably the single most informative thing you can do when it comes to keeping boas. Their behaviors are SO different during these times.
I realize that MANY of the people that post on these forums have bred their boas so I'm sorry if I wasted your time with this drivel. But my hopes are that some folks will find this post informative, at least maybe a little
Thanks!
jb
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Jonathan Brady
*You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you.*
