Some people choose to share pics of projects in the works, while breeding, gravid, etc. Others choose not to in fear of "jinxing" themselves, and keeping projects secret until babies are on the ground, because as we all know, things can/will go wrong sometimes, and babies don't always hit the ground. That's fine, to each his own....
Me personally, I can't help myself but show these to the world. I do not breed boas for a living, I am a small, private collector who enjoys the hobby, and I get FRIGGIN' EXCITED!!!!! The entire reason I do this is for enjoyment, and having gravid boas allows the imagination to run wild with "what ifs" and "I wonder what these will look like." I catch myself daydreaming at times about the babies to come (hopefully alive and well).
So I decided to let your imaginations run with me for the time being while my projects are still in the works, because I'm so excited about them. I showed off these pics in separate posts over the last few weeks, but here they are together.
On December 6, I got a football ovulation from a hypo 100% het VPI, she was bred by a VPI Motley. A few days ago, I nearly lost my mind and thought she was dead..... I came home and found her like this:
Thankfully she is ok, was only doing the "twist" as we boa lovers call it, heating her babies. After the ovulation had gone back down and I felt she was relaxed enough, I replaced the newspaper with astroturf carpeting that I keep on hand, because I feel that it transfers heat better. My temp gun shows a 3 degree increase from newspaper without changing the thermostat.
Here she is a few minutes ago, wound up like the tightest little pickle jar:
Just for mentioning sake, I'm not sure how confident I am with her. I seem to have better litters when the females ovulation goes away, but the female is still obviously swollen. This female does not have that same look. She thinned out slightly more than I would've preferred after ovulation, but still appears swollen depending on her body positioning. Keeping my fingers crossed. Any opinions on similar experience?
Then just a few days ago, January 6, my VPI female that was bred by a hypo arabesque had her football ovulation. Here she is just a few moments ago, also wound up tight as ever, and showing the classic "flat-tire" look:
Both cages together, the top is the hypo het VPI, bottom is the VPI:
Last but not least, here is a pairing that I honestly started to give up hope on. The male has bred hard since beginning of november, but the female has not shown any signs of swelling, and has given me no reason to believe she would ovulate.... until now! Finally starting to show some pre-ov swelling!
OT Hypo het VPI x OT Hypo het VPI (unrelated), maybe there's reason to believe an ovulation is yet to come!:
Isn't that female BEAUTIFUL!? I'm trying to imagine a super OT VPI Sunglow, and I can't picture it. But I'll bet it glows in the dark. Any takers?
I hope I'm not jinxing myself, but my imagination will be running wild until my first litter is due in the end of April. I have one more VPI pairing which has not been introduced yet. The male will be going in by the end of this month, at which point I will share with the class! =)
Thanks for looking!
Tony
