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This litter of Argentinian Rainbow Boas,Epicrates cenchria alvarezi was born this morning. There are six healthy babies and two slugs. Mom and the babies are doing fine. She looked terrible two months ago. She had been looking very emaciated carrying this litter and refused to eat rat pups. I tried rat pinks and she has been eating a couple of them a week and started looking much better right after she started eating them.

28 may 2009 alvarezi litter.

28 may 2009 alvarezi litter.

Those are awesome snakes. I love how they hold their markings to adulthood. I bet they are quite temperature hardy seeing their southerly lattitudes. Congrats.
Mike

I have an ARB that Jeff produced. It's probably the easiest to care for and lowest maintenance snake I've ever had. They seem to be much more tolerant of lower humidity than other rainbows. Very nice compliment to my always hungry and very messy indigos...

Thanks,
Ed

>>Those are awesome snakes. I love how they hold their markings to adulthood. I bet they are quite temperature hardy seeing their southerly lattitudes. Congrats.
>>Mike

Jeff,

Congratulations, the babies look awesome.

Thanks for sharing,
Ed

Ed,
...Thanks, I was thinking you might like seeing this litter.
Jeff

Congrats Jeff!

How do you tell if your Rainbow is gavid when she looks emaciated? I ask because one of my BRBs is looking super thin, and hasn't eaten hardly anything since breeding. I finally got a small rat in her a little over a week ago, but refused again this week. She doesn't look gravid, but her sudden change in behavior, and constantly laying on the heat makes me wonder what is up with her.
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Aubrey,
....Thanks. Sometimes it is VERY hard to tell if they are gravid or not. Through watching their behaviours and body shape and attempting to palpate the egg masses and later in gravidity using the fetal heart monitor I am getting better at determining which ones are gravid but still miss on some of them. The further along in gravidity the more weight the mother snakes lose from their bodies while the egg masses continue growing larger. The mother snake is losing weight from her own body while the load of babies keeps growing larger. They are not as might be surmised transfering nutrition from their bodies to the babies but are instead just losing weight from their bodies because of the energy required for their life processes of respiration, circulation, digestion and movement. While this is happening the egg masses are converting the high fat "yolk" material into growth of the baby snake. Baby snakes like baby humans have a higher percentage of water in their bodies than adults do. Fat does not contain water. The developing babies get their water through osmosis across the membrane that surrounds each egg. As this is happening the egg mass grows much larger and heavier. The babies also get their oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide through osmosis across the membrane.
Jeff

>>Congrats Jeff!
>>
>>How do you tell if your Rainbow is gavid when she looks emaciated? I ask because one of my BRBs is looking super thin, and hasn't eaten hardly anything since breeding. I finally got a small rat in her a little over a week ago, but refused again this week. She doesn't look gravid, but her sudden change in behavior, and constantly laying on the heat makes me wonder what is up with her.
>>-----
>>Aubrey Ross
>>
>>©
>>www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Congrats Jeff, Glad to hear she was taking some lil snake snacks to keep her strength up. Good idea!

Cute little slimers and as always, more pics when they shed out!!!
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (05/26/2009):
36.51 BRB
29.42 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

>>Congrats Jeff, Glad to hear she was taking some lil snake snacks to keep her strength up. Good idea!
>>
>>Cute little slimers and as always, more pics when they shed out!!!
>>-----
>>Thanks,
>>
>>
>>Dave Colling
>>
>>www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com
>>
>>
>>
>>0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
>>0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)
>>
>>LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (05/26/2009):
>>36.51 BRB
>>29.42 BCI
>>And those are only the breeders
>>
>>lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Awesome Jeff! Big congrats. Looks like one of the babies has that 'pearl' thing going.
Paul

Paul,
...Yes, that one does have a pearl effect along the sides. I will shoot more PICs to show it.
Jeff

Great news, Jeff - is this a fairly typical litter size for alvarazi?

It's always interested me the differing reproductive strategies in the Epicrates clan - small litter of monster babies for angulifer and then a mass of tiny worms for striatus

Regards, Ryan

Ryan,
...With the two slugs this is a typical size alvarezi litter. My largest litter of alvarezi was 16 but all my other litters have had less than a dozen. Most adult alvarezi are less than 4.5 feet long and they stay pretty slender compared to other Rainbow Boas. The babies are relatively large so big numbers are not possible. I wonder if the size of the insular Epic litters has something to do with the availability and size of lizards for their babies to feed upon. The Rhino Iguana fans would probably get upset if we start speculating on the diet of young angulifer.
Jeff

Jeff - yes, could well be related to prey availability. In my experience, Cuban's will eat just about anything I know that Pete Tolson has observed PR boas eating Cyclura in the wild.

Thanks for the info, Ryan

Congrats! They look fantastic.
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~Danielle

2.1 BRBs
1.1 BCI
1.0 Southern White-Lipped Pythons
1.1 Black Milksnakes

Danielle,
...Thanks and be sure to keep us updated on the Rainbow Boa Forum's most important captive breeding project.
Jeff

Will do.

Three months to go... I don't recall when my POS was, however.
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~Danielle

2.1 BRBs
1.1 BCI
1.0 Southern White-Lipped Pythons
1.1 Black Milksnakes

>>This litter of Argentinian Rainbow Boas,Epicrates cenchria alvarezi was born this morning. There are six healthy babies and two slugs. Mom and the babies are doing fine. She looked terrible two months ago. She had been looking very emaciated carrying this litter and refused to eat rat pups. I tried rat pinks and she has been eating a couple of them a week and started looking much better right after she started eating them.
>>
-----
Thanks,

Frank Roberts

>>>>This litter of Argentinian Rainbow Boas,Epicrates cenchria alvarezi was born this morning. There are six healthy babies and two slugs. Mom and the babies are doing fine. She looked terrible two months ago. She had been looking very emaciated carrying this litter and refused to eat rat pups. I tried rat pinks and she has been eating a couple of them a week and started looking much better right after she started eating them.
>>>>
>>-----
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Frank Roberts
>>
>>