Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, even though I was beginning to wonder if it was even possible after all this time, one of my female booms laid her eggs today. They began their breeding process back in January, and there wasn't really any noticeable swelling until here in the past few weeks, so I was beginning to wonder if it would even happen. However, I was able to get a copy of the Chicago Herp Society's Feb 1995 Newsletter which has a pretty extensive article on the captive care and reproduction of D. typus, and according to it, booms tend to take a long time when it comes to reproducing. They can take up to 240 days between breeding and laying, and then eggs take much longer than most other colubs at about 90 days to incubate. Just goes to show, I suppose, how much different booms are to other colubs.

As far as specifics, my female that laid today (the smaller one at around 4' or so), gave me 5 eggs in total, one of which is definitely a slug. The others look 'different' compared to my other colub eggs I'm currently incubating, but I'm not panicking yet. For this snake's length and width, the egg size is amazing. Each egg is around 2.5" long and about .5 to 1" thick. Keep in mind, a 4' slang is a very slender snake. Her posterior, in the past few weeks, was becoming very distended, but because of the irregular look to it, I began to become worried that maybe it was an impaction rather than her being gravid. No eggs could be palpated, but that might be due to their slenderness. But then again, I haven't ever had much luck at palpating eggs, so who knows. Anyway, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for these 4 good looking eggs and hope everything goes alright. My other female, at around 5.5', should be gravid by now as well, and I imagine she'll lay a much larger number of eggs.

And who knows, with the way the male is acting, she may go for another round, though I've not read much information on them double-clutching. Anyway, thanks for reading!
River Valley Snakes

Congratulations on the eggs. Did you check them for fertility? Be prepared for a relatively long incubation period.

Best of luck.

Regards,

~TE

>>Congratulations on the eggs. Did you check them for fertility? >>Be prepared for a relatively long incubation period.

Hey Thomas. Yeah, the incubation period is a killer. This article puts it between 79 to 93 days, with a period of up to 98 days at one instance. Seems very odd for a colubrid. I did check them for fertility, and at this time I'm not going to either confirm or deny it, as there wasn't any really apparent veining, but there was a red area in the eggs indicated an embryo.

Just curious, have you came across any material that might speculate on while D. typus gestation and incubation is so long? Is that just a common occurence with other African colubrids, or just booms? Like I said in my first post, I originally noted mating attempts back in January. These could have initially just been attemps, but I'm sure I saw hemipenalpenetration and even documented photos of it. So, with that being the case, if 11 Jan was the first true attempted mating, then the eggs were laid June 23, having a separation of over 5 months gestation. Anyway, really neat stuff. I'm just hoping for at least one egg to be fertile! lol, that's all I ask.
-Chance

I was checking these eggs this morning, actually hoping for the worst. When they were laid, they were a yellowish color, and upon candling, I couldn't see anything but a small reddish speck inside the egg, so naturally I was afraid they were slugs or something. Well, after shining a small flashlight through them just a while ago, I noticed some veins beginning to extend out from the red areas. Is this normal for colubrid eggs, to be laid that underdeveloped? So far I only have exerperience breeding and incubating prairie kingsnake and eastern hognose eggs, and in those two snakes, the eggs are laid with extensive veining and such. However, boomslang egg incubation time is incredibly long compared to most other colubrids, after an even longer gestation period (mine went over 5 months), so it amazes me that after all that time the eggs are laid with only a tiny embryo and no noticeable veining at first. Anyway, if you're interested, I can keep the board updated on the development of these eggs.
-Chance

Obviously I meant to say "expecting the worst", not "hoping for the worst" lol

Chance,

The long delay between mating and laying is probably due to sperm storage by the female, not to a very long development time of the eggs. This is a common pattern in many snakes: females store sperm for weeks or months after mating before using it to fertilise the eggs. For instance, many rattlesnakes mate in autumn, and the females store the sperm until spring/early summer, when they fertilise their eggs, and embryonic development begins.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
-----
WW

WW Home

Well, after around a week and a half's incubation at 30 C, all the eggs have shown very pronounced development and are now reall well-veined throughout. I'm very curious why it is that boomsland's reproduction is so "slow" compared to most snakes, because it's obvious that when she laid her eggs initially, they hadn't developed much at all and I was just having to guess at maybe seeing the place where the embryo was in them. My other colubrids that I've had lay so far this year have all laid very developed eggs with really pronounced veination. I guess that would explain kingsnakes' incubation at 55 days, and boomslangs' at closer to 90. Ah well...the wait continues. Thanks for reading.
-Chance

I can't wait to see the babies.