Posted by:
RandyRemington
at Sun Jan 4 07:05:20 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by RandyRemington ]
I understand the temptation to shortcut the quarantine process on the cusp of breeding season. I think you mentioned they where rescued a month ago and depending on how the female ball was kept that could be a nice beginning to quarantine. However, I'm super paranoid about balls having been kept with boas right now due to IBD so be sure you don't have any mites to vector that nasty around. If kept in separate cages and without external parasites there should be very little if any risk to keeping both boas and balls but given how common mites are in pet stores I worry about balls that have been through pet stores. I'm not sure how long it would take a ball to come down with IBD so not sure how long of a quarantine you would need after a ball was last exposed to a boa or boa mites to be sure you don't have it. Because boas can live with IBD for some time it has become all too common for them to have it but it quickly kills pythons (actually better for us because if your pythons are staying alive you eventually know you don’t have IBD).
When I was first starting out I often had friends sex snakes for me and found (after I spent years growing the snakes up) that they weren’t even right 50% of the time. Depending on how much experience your friend has you might be better off flipping a coin to sex the new girl. I think it's better now days but if you have any doubts look for a more experienced 2nd or 3rd opinion.
Are you sure the het male was biting the het female and not the new "girl"? I haven't seen male combat and it sounds like from what Jeff said that even then biting would be rare but it seems more likely than biting the female he has been breeding. It would really suck if the new snake turned out to be a male and fathered the babies with the het female rather than the het male. Maybe breed the new female separately after any additional quarantine and confirmation of gender.
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Quarantine and Sexing - RandyRemington, Sun Jan 4 07:05:20 2004