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Greetings

For how long can a BRB female keep semen in her body without it "going bad" ?

Is it common that "packages" of semen fall out during probing of the female (or the male) ?

Thanx
Mattias, Sweden

Mattias,
...There are many cases of female boids becoming gravid a year after their last contact with a male. I do not know for sure if this occurs in Rainbow Boas. I have never seen any discharge of semen from Rainbow Boas during probing. During mating season males will often leave semen samples on the cage floor and in water bowls. Adults do not need to be probed. You can tell what sex they are by their behaviour and the size of their spurs and shape of their tails.
Jeff

>>Greetings
>>
>>For how long can a BRB female keep semen in her body without it "going bad" ?
>>
>>Is it common that "packages" of semen fall out during probing of the female (or the male) ?
>>
>>Thanx
>>Mattias, Sweden
>>

Yes, well the questions arose in a swedish forum and I wasn't sure of the answers. I guess the reason for probing the BRB in qustion would be that the owner had a single snake without a second specimen of the opposite sex for comparison of spurs, tail length etc. and/or inadequate experience of Rainbow Boas to determine the sex just by looking at it's physical attributes. Whatever the case, the female BRB droped a "package" of semen while being probed, and the last observed mating took place a year and a half ago. So there are no known cases of RB's giving birth more than a year after mating ?

My adult males have been leaving messy traces of some sort of activity in their water bowls all winter, and it's not BRB droppings...

Mattias, Sweden

I wasn't keeping very good records at the time but I'm fairly certain that a few years ago, I had a female BRB give birth after she had not been exposed to a male since the previous breeding season.

Also, this time of year I usually find what looks like the sheath of a hemipene in cages where mating has taken place. It usually ends up in the water dish but is sometimes laying on the substrate. Once I through it under a microscope just for kicks and I saw what looked like sperm cells. I always thought it was the remnants of some sort of plug deposited by the male into the female. Sort of an insurance policy that no other males would be able to successfully copulate. I don't know know if this is true or not so feel free to set me straight. However, I did just find one of these sheaths the other day. I was so close to taking a picture of it and posting it here. Maybe next time. I'm taking it as a sign of a good season. Wish me luck,

Mike
Link

Mattias,
...When the males leave deposits in the water bowl the deposit will often have the exact shape of one or both of the hemipenes. The first time I saw one and did not know what it was I thought it was some sort of multicellular water dwelling creature or something.
Jeff

>>Yes, well the questions arose in a swedish forum and I wasn't sure of the answers. I guess the reason for probing the BRB in qustion would be that the owner had a single snake without a second specimen of the opposite sex for comparison of spurs, tail length etc. and/or inadequate experience of Rainbow Boas to determine the sex just by looking at it's physical attributes. Whatever the case, the female BRB droped a "package" of semen while being probed, and the last observed mating took place a year and a half ago. So there are no known cases of RB's giving birth more than a year after mating ?
>>
>>My adult males have been leaving messy traces of some sort of activity in their water bowls all winter, and it's not BRB droppings...
>>
>>Mattias, Sweden