Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm a new breeder to the BCI world. This was my first shot at breeding them and was successful.
The female just went through POS and I am stressin about leavin the male in there with her.
Everything I have read says to remove the male etc.. I'm in the middle of a long move and slackin
room at the moment. Has anyone ever left in the male with the female all the way through birth? Any
opinions would be greatly apprecaited. Just really stressin over this.

I'm not the best person to answer this...
but since no one else has yet, I would remove the male
if you can. Could you set up a temp. rubbermaid for him
with heat pad and water bowl until the move? I believe
someone has left the male in thru the boa's gestation (I remember
seeing post about that) and the female gave birth ok, but I
believe they removed the male about 2 weeks before her due date.
I don't know an actual reason to remove the male, I just figured:
1. so he doesn't stress the female out, which could possibly
cause her to drop the babies early
2. so there's not another full-grown boa in with the babies which
could squish them when born
3. so they don't compete for the best spot in the tank.
(My male would always take the warm end and my female
would go off into the cool end sometimes, after her POS and I
removed him she went to the hot end and hangs out there almost
all the time, I think she was intimidated by him and didn't like
to lay together... just my take on things..)
Sorry I can't help more.
I think it would be best to take him out, if you can't tho
at least try to take him out a week or so before you expect
the babies to be born.
Good luck

I'm not sure if April is remembering a post or an email I sent her(wink), but I left my male in until about 2 weeks before the female dropped the babies. It was my first time breeding, and to be perfectly honest I wanted to make sure she was definitely gravid. My male was much smaller than the female, so I felt a bit more comfortable leaving them togther. He actually continued trying to breed her up until about 2 weeks before I removed him. For some reason he never stopped showing interest in breeding, could have been because he was inexperienced, who knows? I have to agree with April though, I would think it would be better to pull the male. I have a pair that are courting now, and I have really been paying much closer attention to what has been going on, and I plan to pull the male after the POS.

Hopefully some one with more experience can give you a more concrete answer. I think that I probably should have pulled the male, but she did drop a good litter, so no harm, no foul.

Good luck,
Rick S.

np