Hi
We still need to take pictures. ;/
The long and the short of it is that some 3 years ago we had 3 adult red-tailed boas--Midnight, Odin and Freya. We thought we had two males and one female. Turns out we had one male (Midnight) and two females. We found this out when Odin became pregnant. Odin had one healthy litter, which we sold, and then everyone came down with upper respiratory infections. It went from bad to worse and then Midnight was diagnosed with IBD by blood test. By then the girls were both pregnant. Midnight was put down when he started seriously bellows-breathing--and we had him necropsied to confirm the IBD. Odin delivered some 21 babies--including a partially two headed baby which thankfully died on its own-- and then she and her entire litter were put down. Freya, due on Feb 1 last year, delivered on February 2, some 20 babies, including Brigid. Brigid has an interesting tail marking, so I had to keep her/him (we haven't had the baby sexed--so my default is female). All the other babies were put down. I tried to keep Freya (she was a beautiful high pink normal), but her upper respiratory infection came back with a vengence, so she had to be put down too. All of these deaths, plus that of a very very dear rat pet (Nicki--more like a small dog) happened roughly between Thanksgiving and Feb 2. We got a sympathy card from our vet, and she told me over the phone that we were her most heartbreaking patients.
Brigid is kept in the closet in one room. Hopey and Izzy, the ball pythons, are kept in another room. And I never handle Brigid first. Our other two snakes are a corn snake and a rat snake. We've had to stay away from reptire expos because it's too tempting to want to buy another boa...but we can't risk it.
knock on wood, everyone has been fine this year.
Antigone
