Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I posted a post earlier stating that my snake was ovulating or possibly gravid. Well that BIG bulge that started from the middle of her body to almost her tail is gone. She still looks slightly bigger but not much. The main BIG bulge is gone. I'm guessing what i saw before was ovulation right? Is this a sign that shes gravid now that she ovulated? The male i think is done breeding with her until next year.

~ron

Ron,
. I think you are expecting specific answers to questions which are presently impossible to answer. I have had almost 100 litters of Rainbow Boas and over 80 of those litters were BRBs and I have quite a few BRBs here which have been bred this year and I am really not sure which ones are gravid. Getting these snakes to breed is not easy and after they have bred and ovulated there is a very big chance that they will not lay live babies. If breeding these snakes was easy we would have so many baby BRBs that we would have to give them away. From what you have posted it does sound like your BRB has ovulated but now about all you can do is provide her with a good temperature gradient so that she can thermoregulate while she is gestating. And wait and keep your fingers crossed. BTW, there are high tech methods to possibly determine if your snake is gravid. You could have the snake X-rayed but X-rays are terratogenic and so I would not recommend it. X-rays are less likely to be terratogenic later in pregnancy/gravidity (at least we know that is the case in mammals) and so an X-ray later should be less risky and might be a reasonable course of action. There has been some work done using sonography to find developing babies in snakes. There are a few vets and even a few breeders who claim to be pretty good at this and perhaps you could find one of them to sonograph your snake.
Jeff

>>I posted a post earlier stating that my snake was ovulating or possibly gravid. Well that BIG bulge that started from the middle of her body to almost her tail is gone. She still looks slightly bigger but not much. The main BIG bulge is gone. I'm guessing what i saw before was ovulation right? Is this a sign that shes gravid now that she ovulated? The male i think is done breeding with her until next year.
>>
>>~ron