Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is Returna. She has a bunch of really strong fetal heart tones.

Good luck, if the tones are strong then she should not be that far from delivering, do you have a due date?
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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 (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

I do not keep track of shed dates and did not even see breeding activity with this female and her mate. I did notice that she was looking and acting gravid in april. What I have found over a couple of years using my doppler ultrasound fetal monitor is that fetal heart tones are impossible to detect earlier than 15 days before delivery and the tones are not often loud enough to be easily found until 10 days before birth.

That is one FAT girl! Interesting that you don't hear the tones until 15 days before birth.... that would be a handy device to use! Where did you get your monitor?
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Aubrey Ross

©
www.SlipstreamSerpents.com

Got the monitor on Ebay. It is a Contec Sonotrax B 3 mhz fetal heart tone monitor. I think snake fetal hearts are just too small to hear with it until they are near full term. An ultrasound with a smaller probe face and possibly also higher frequency would probably be better for this application. I can get better results if the snake is in water for awhile so that mini air bubbles between the scales float out of the way. The probe face needs to have a solid contact surface to work best and snake scales both insulate the sound and create gaps between the scales which create noise as the air is moved around in little bubbles between the scales. Also, if you have a snake that will not hold still the noise of it's movement will be greater than any fetal heart noises. This tool has it's place but is not quite all that we need.

Yes, I trade a few babies for mice at the local reptile store. This female was one of those that came back into the store with a couple stuck sheds and refusing to eat. I soaked her and got the stuck sheds off and she has done great since then.

nice lookin good