Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I posted this before and nobody responded. No eye candy, no great pics, or I'm sure the post would have gotten a response. Just looking for a little info from experienced breeders. I'm sure that there are others that have the same questions.

When do you know that your females are gravid?
What signals or changes in their behavior tell you that she is gravid?
Heat seeking? Cool seeking? Going off feed? Male is no longer interested?
If fertilization takes place after ovulation, do females show any signs of being gravid prior to ovulation?

Thanks in advance
John

Generally speaking, a female will go into a shed cycle soon after ovulation. This is the post ovulation shed or POS. This shed cycle will usually last much longer than a normal shed cycle. After this, the female will usually be much darker than normal. She will also tend to stay in the heat conservation position, ie. curled up on the warm side. Gravid females will also usually maintain a higher than usual temp. around 88 or 89 deg. Some will go off feed and others will continue to feed. I feed my gravid females a small meal every three weeks. Make sure not to feed a large meal as this can harm the developing babies. Also, stop feeding during the last few weeks of gestation because it can cause premature birth.

Hope this helps,
Matt

That was driving me crazy, but I didn't want to ask. Not a breeder, but I like reading the posts.

Post Ovulation Shed
Point-of-sale
and that other thing...that people call my car.
Piece of...
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Jeremy J. Anderson
snakepimp.com
gemstatereptiles.com
Of course it's my opinion, I said it, didn't I?
Breeding season is always just around the corner....JOY!!!

a

Hi John, here's a female argentine ovulating here last night. Argentines breed later than colombians here so I didn't pair them up until late November. With this female it was really easy to see her filling out with developing ova for the last several weeks. The male was on her constantly so she was only offered food when they took breaks from breeding. I kept the male in with her until a couple nights ago, when she appeared to have a small ovulation. Then after seeing this much larger one last night, I no longer need to pair them up. His job is done!

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Mark Kennedy Reptiles
web site

I have no idea John, I haven't produced any boas yet, but I have 2 females due on March 18th and March 23rd respectively. Here's one of them. As far as heat conservation, I have seen some of that, but not a lot, out of this female, does that mean that they are slugs? =( Or maybe she is just warm enough. =) the other female, I have seen a lot of heat conservation. both of them wanted to eat a lot more than I gave them (1 medium/small rat every 3 weeks, but not for the last month) while gravid. I am positive my Argentine is gravid and fertile, but I don't have any real good gravid pictures of her. Not to say that this is a good picture, but you can see she is large. This is about 1 month into gestation.

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Jeremy J. Anderson
snakepimp.com
gemstatereptiles.com
Of course it's my opinion, I said it, didn't I?
Breeding season is always just around the corner....JOY!!!

I can only speak from Hogg Island Boa breeding, my trio bred for me all 6 times I put them togather. Basically, I left the trio togather all year round, and they would start mating in December, every year like clockwork. Babies would be born in July. When the females were gravid, there was no doubt, they looked like 2 liter Coke bottles instead of 20 Oz Coke bottles
They of course were seperated when fed, and fed small meals when they wanted them, a few wasted rats, but not many. My male actually ate less during the breeding season than the females. One year the females just did not fatten up enough to breed, so I kept the male seperate that one year, and boy was he bummed, you could actually see him sulking The Hoggs have two color phases, one dark one light. They maintained the dark phase pretty much all through breeding season once gravid. When they darkened up, and stayed that way, it was a good sign. And yes, they do keep more on the hot side when gravid.