About nine years ago I observed a Boa ovulating. She was very tense moving those ova into the oviduct, but there never was a huge swelling or “lump”. I observed her looking very tense each and every time I looked at her for just about two weeks. That was the only time I had ever identified this unusual event until now. Now here we are in the last week of May. In fact I had my last ovulation May 6th, but that was the latest one I had here in about 15 years! It is well past the normal time for any of my females to be ovulating and I have a female doing this exact same ultimately long ovulation thing right now! However, she is not alone. I have two females in this extremely long protracted seemingly unyielding ovulation phenomenon. It is very strange.
I feed during the breeding season these days, as I have for a number of years now. I only feed every three to four weeks though during breeding. A female that refuses to eat during this time usually does so because ovulation is immanent. That has been the usual result because nearly all Boas will feed during breeding. This refusal will normally just put me on higher alert watching for an ovulation. Most of the time ovulation is within less than one week after a refusal such as this. This extremely long super duper slow motion ovulation is different from the “Slo-Mo-O” I have written about before. Ovulation can last for weeks sometimes, apparently.
I have two females that have refused a rat each of the last three offerings. The refusal of a food item just prior to ovulation is a bit different from most rejections of a meal. These two females are large heavily muscled animals that both looked rather tense at the time that I was offering dinner last Saturday (today is the following Tuesday). When the dead warm rat was introduced to them, they backed away. In fact, one female actually put her head way down and backs away sheepishly. This is very different from her normal response. Both females have been stretched out for the most part. They are not laying on top of themselves at all. Neither one has climbed up on their shelf at all for the past three weeks. They look really thick and solid all the time. There locomotion is noticeably reduced. I can find them in nearly identical positions after an hour or two. The forward movement, or really just locomotion as they aren’t going anywhere, is really subtle.
Now a few days ago, after spending some time worrying about both of these two girls, I could not miss that they both now look like a female looks after the completion of the ovulation process. The redistribution of weight. They are flatter or thinner and less muscular looking up front while very chunky in the back half. The reason they have moved around very little and refused feed is they have been in this bazaar ovulation event for days. This has been going on for more than two weeks for the Colombian female and a bit over a week for the Argentine.
Here is the female Colombian described above:
You can see how soft looking she is up front and that the back portion is obviously really tense looking. She has produced three times for me in the past and is way bigger than the last time she gave me a litter with 34 babies. The Argentine below is the other girl that is now about a week into this thing. She is much less obvious but I have found generally that Argentines are not as heavy bodied overall as Colombians and so less obvious as far as this more subtle change. Now I have to wait for them to finish up, go into a shed, and then the long wait begins for those babies. The really strange thing is, I plan on having some males in with females for the next breeding season begins when these girls will be due to give birth.
So, now my question is this; has anyone else ever observed this? If so, what was the result of that particular event? Did you get a good litter of babies? I have only identified this event three times in nearly 25 years of breeding Boas. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened more times that just three. I have only identified it three times. The other time I had this happen, the result was all slugs. I’m planning or hoping for a different result this time.
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Jeff Ronne Sr
The Boaphile
Director USARK
Originator of Boaphile Plastics
The Boaphile Boa Site
