The largest female produced another litter of young early yesterday morning. This is the third litter for this particular female since 2003. It was also the first breeding for the young male that I used which I had raised from a previous unrelated litter that Jud and I produced in 2001 using a different captive born female and his large captive born male. This litter and the one Jud produced a couple of weeks ago are both third generation captive born greens and pretty much unrelated.
I am typically able to easily check on her two or three times per day with no problem. But yesterday I wasn’t able to check on her until late that evening. Unfortunately, it had been almost 24 hours since I had last checked in on her, and from the looks of the unit, it appeared that they had probably been born 15 to 20 hours earlier. There were 9 slugs, 16 live young, and 4 dead young that appeared to have been crushed by the female as she moved about the unit. The female was laying on another of them when I came in the room and I quickly removed them all from the unit. All the dead were of normal length and weight, no visible abnormalities, and appeared to have been born healthy and alive. There were probably a few more slugs, but I could tell that she had eaten some, so I don’t have a full count on them. The young are between 750 and 800 mm (29 to 31 inches) and are between 240 and 260 grams. They are all quite calm and none struck as they were pulled from the mothers unit. While it is very unfortunate that the four were killed, I am still quite pleased with the outcome of the birth. As rare as it is to successfully reproduce green anacondas in captivity, I am always happy to see any number of live young. Below are a few photos showing the neonates and the four that didn’t make it along with a few of the slugs. Thanks again for looking.
Kelly
