Hey Everyone,
Well, from all the new baby boas posted this season, it looks like a lot of you have had some incredible litters.
I had my 2nd and last litter of the season. I bred my 1999 Arg. x Col. female (a big 8 foot sweetheart of a boa) to my proven 2000 DH Sunglow. I bred these two back in 2004 and was blessed with my very litter of boas ever!! I held back a few of the nicer babies, which produced some outstanding probable supers for me last year (one having no saddles except for a couple tail saddles; I’ll post her later). So I repeated the same pairing from 2004 in the hopes of getting some similar looking babies to holdback.
Well, the breeding went smoothly, except the female didn’t give me a post-ov shed. So I had no idea when she was due. I kept a close eye on her and she looked great throughout her gestation. Last week she started cruising her enclosure and then had a “pre-birth waxy stool,” so I knew to expect babies in the next day or so.
I woke up early in the morning on 7/7/2010 and found new babies. I got some decent hypos poss het sunglow and normals, some slugs, and an unexpected ALBINO!?!? 
Does anything stick out in this litter? 
Now the male is a 10 year old proven DH sunglow, which I’ve had since he was a few months old. Here’s a terrible recent pic of him. Great boa and a reliable breeder.
The female is an 11 year old arg x col cross, which I’ve also had since she was a couple months old. Here’s a pic of her shortly after birth and after removing her into another enclosure. She gave me a little hiss, but once I got her out of the birthing cage, she was fine.
Like I mentioned above, I paired up these two in 2004 and got 25 babies and 2 slugs. No albinos or anything that resembled an albino popped up in 2004. In fact, I bought the female straight from the breeder who produced her and he mentioned nothing about any possibility of any albino gene being in the mix.
Here are a few more shots of the litter still in the goo in the cage.
Here are some tub pics of the normals and hypos. By the way, final count was 10 normals 50% het albino, 13 hypos 50% dh sunglows, 6 slugs, and 1 albino.
So I’m a bit dumbfounded to say the least. This little albino is a nice surprise, but still confusing. Here are some pics of the surprise baby just to show that he is in fact an albino and not just a premie hypo with underdeveloped pigment.
Another interesting point, is that this little albino was the only premie in the litter, with a little yolk yet to be absorbed when he was born. He has absorbed nearly the remainder of the yolk, and he’s separated from the rest of the litter to minimize the stress exposure. I initially didn’t think he’d make it past that first day, and I’m still concerned, but he’s hanging in there.
Right now, I’m simply going to assume that this was not a random event and that the female—somehow and someway—had the albino gene in her genetic makeup somewhere, and maybe the odds simply hit this time around. This especially makes sense because the male is a proven DH Sunglow (Kahl strain). I guess I’ll have to wait and see. I think the little guy is a male, but he was a bit slippery last time I tried to check so I need to confirm once I’m more confident he’s going to pull through. Regardless of how it happened, these unexpected events makes this hobby still very very interesting and fascinating for me.
Well, I know an albino is no big news flash around here. However, I thought the circumstances giving rise to this little guy’s birth warranted a post on the forum. Completely unexpected, since the female, as far as I know, is not a known or even a possible het albino. If I decide to breed her again, it will be to a sunglow to try and prove/disprove that she carries the Kahl albino gene. For now, I'm going to focus on trying to keep the little surprise albino healthy. Please keep your fingers crossed that he pulls through.
Any insight, input, or opinions are welcome. Hope you enjoyed my long-winded story.
My boa season is over, but I hope the rest of you have a great remainder of the season.
Jay
