Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, this is my 1st project breeding that I've undertaken to prove out a striped Boa to be genetic. The pic below (pic of a photograph, before I had a digi camera) shows a male that I had purchased from a pet shop back in '94. I believe he was wild caught because he had a couple of broken ribs, mites, and a nasty attitude.

He bred for me 6 times in four years. It was my goal to breed him back to one of his kids, but the female that I kept turned out to be a male, so I sold him. Then I kept another female from the next years babies (learned the "popping" method), a reverse stripe, named sassy. He bred a het for albino in '03 which he produced only 4 babies, but he would never eat after breeding and finally died @ around 12-14 years old, never growing more than 4 1/2-5 ft , so I don't believe that he was a Columbian. I kept one of the four babies, since I didn't have a male to prove out the rev.stripe with. He was a CBLT 50% poss het Albino, named Stubby. Well, at four years old , Sassy was around 5- 5 1/2 ft, and 2 1/2 yr old Stubby was only 30" - very small, but very active in courtship with Sassy. Courtship started in October. Ovulation was at the end of March, and she had her POS in mid April. Her projected due date is July 25th.
Here's Stubby:

Here's the two in copulation. look how small he is:


Here's ovulation (more noticable in person):

Sassy, in tub while cleaning cage:

Under heat panel (looking darker):

So in July I will find out if this striping is a genetic trait. This should have been done a few years ago, but I wasn't fully aware of how genetics worked back then. This is the latest (in the year) that I've ever produced babies. Wish me luck.
-------------------Take care, David/Morgans Boas
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--aka DMOG68

People that take the time and have the patience to prove something out. After all it is the biggest reward for your time and effort.

het kahl stripe x het kahl stripe : you know what to expect but in this case it is much better.

IT CAN BE EVERYTHING OR NOTHING (if you consider normal boa's NOTHING).

Good luck and keep us posted.

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Eric Tersteeg
http://www.boaconstrictor.nl

. . . and there will be more atempts with this line, I recently bought back another male '99 from the same father and different mother to try that out as well, he's a shorty too. I can't locate any other females that he's produced. This is just the 1st attempt, so I'm hoping to see some spark of hope here. I'm teating this as a het x het breeding, so approx 1 in 4 should have some striping - I hope. Thanks, David
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--aka DMOG68