Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay,

Although I'd love to be an expert on boas, I am not. I've only bred them a couple of times and haven't had a female go for me in 3 years.
I have a het albino female this year that is acting strange. She is HUGE and getting fatter everyday in the back end and skinnier in the front end. Good signs I hope. That is not the strange part yet.

Anyway, I don't have a shed date on here because one of the guys (me) cleaning out the cage forgot to write the shed date down. It was in Nov-Dec range.

The problem is: She is going INTO a shed now.

In my opinion, she is just too big to wait 105 days from this shed or even half of that.

My question:
Has anyone had experience with boas shedding before birthing or near birthing? OR am I supposed to wait another several weeks.

Any opinions or experience would be appreciated.

Thanks,
-Jeff

,

Yep, sounds familiar. My female shed 3 days ago and is doing fine. I was just worried that the timing of the shed might induce premature birth. It didn't and she is as big as ever. She is also due any day now. Good luck, and thanks for everyone's help and input.

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Derek Roberts
Sonoran Reptile Breeders
sonoranreptile@cox.net

I've had a few Boas have an "intermediate" shed before giving birth. Once it was in the last month. If this is an intermediate shed, then there's no set number of days until birth. This only applys with the POS (105 days /-). Keep us informed.
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--aka DMOG68

Yeah, I thought about an intermediate shed but she seems SO close to popping. She has been HUGE for months! Plus she was cruising the cage a ton last week. But, I'll keep everyone updated. I just am fishing to see if other people have had similar situations.
Thanks
-Jeff

I have just had the weirdest thing happen. A first-year (hopeful) breeder Argentine Boa of mine has been cruising the cage for about 10 days now, and yesterday she was under the newspaper for the first time ever, (pregnant or not) which I thought of as a good sign. Her behavior throughout breeding/gestation has been textbook. Her POS shed happened on December 3rd (my birthday) she is therefore due March 18th. She went through a shed cycle 5 weeks ago, and that was weird enough, now today she is opaque AGAIN. What the heck?
She has not eaten anything in 7 weeks, but she did feed every 2-3 weeks between November and that point, and she passed waste after the shed 5 weeks back. She is really big in the back half and getting very skinny in the front. I just don't know. Boas should read more books about their own behavior. I hope she is going to be OK.
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Jeremy J. Anderson
Gem State Reptiles
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