babies!

The beautiful yellow boa FINALLY had her babies yesterday. I'm so excited, as it's my first boa breeding.
She didn't follow any of the so called rules at all....didn't get big at all (in fact we almost thought she wasn't gravid, despite a scan showing us she was!), shed right through her pregnancy, was active and cruising her viv right the way through etc etc.
But anyways - 17 beautiful babies for now. There were 5 slugs, and 20 live neonates. all a very good size, but many still in sac, and with yokes attached.Three were very weak indeed .I didn't expect them to make it through last night, but two did, only to die today :(
One is still quite weak, but i'm confident she will make it.
Another has quite a deformity - a bulging eye and misaligned jaw. But he's very strong and we're just going to see how he goes over the next few weeks. Rest are wonderful!
Mother is stunning high yellow, very unusual bci - dad is a nicely marked bci originally purchased from Reptile Haven.

Just after birth


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First to die

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second to die - while he was still alive

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The remaining of the weak babies, who I'm hoping will survive

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Some of the babies today

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And last, but not least. The poor little dude with the deformity.

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Thanks for looking

above posted by lisafay, not realising she was logged in as her OH!!!!

Lisa, great litter of boas well done you!!!

Sorry to see a few have died on you lisa,by the looks of the yolk sacks the babies where born a little early.Did you remove the yolk before it was all absorbed? I wounder would it have been better to leave them a while.Maybe warren would know better?

Phil, in your experience is premature parturition common? Any pointers for folk to mitigate risk of the same?

i wish i could be of more help Tony,but ive never experianced this and im not sure if there is anyway of preventing it.
usually when baby boas are born they will ofcourse be in their sacks,but all the yolk should be gone and the umbilical cord should only be a thin thread.When the babies are born they are kept most and you have to allow the cord to come off in its own time,which usually only takes a few hours or so.If you try to detach the cord before its ready the babies can bleed to death.Im not sure if when the babies are born with large unabsorbed yolk sacks you should leave them to see if they will absorb the yolk if this is possible with such a large amount of yolk.
Im hoping Warren can be of more help as i would like know incase i ever have the same problem.

Cheers Phil...

Excellent thread guys. Lisa congrats on the litter and sharing the pics. I never saw anything like this before. Looking forward to Warrens take on it.

Phil wrote:Sorry to see a few have died on you lisa,by the looks of the yolk sacks the babies where born a little early.Did you remove the yolk before it was all absorbed? I wounder would it have been better to leave them a while.Maybe warren would know better?

Yes, like I said in first post they were born inside sacs, quite a few with yolks attached. A friend had a litter last year where most of the babies came out already out of the embryonic sac.

No, I didn't remove any of the yolk!

They were left as they were to absorb whatever yolk they could. I also disturbed the babies as little as possible, apart from separating the weaker neonates. By the following day, some had absorbed yolk and some were detached from the yolk they had been born with having absorbed some. From various people I've spoken to, it's not uncommon to have some babies in the litter with yoke left who could have done with a few more days when others are fine! But I should say, this is only research and what I've heard. This is my very first experience of breeding boas, so i'm talking out my

The three very weak babies passed away. One is a little weak still, but is doing much better and I think he will be ok. The other 16 are wonderfully feisty and trying their best to scare me off. It's brilliant to see them so lively and healthy looking!

I think the breeding section of this careguide is really informative, and gives details about dangers of yolk solidification etc.
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Big congrats Lisa! They look super! Any photos of the parentals?

thanks karl I'm on cloud nine...
Will do, I think you'll like the female - just need to wait for her to chill out a little and stop trying to kill me!

Did you use a portable ultrasound to scan her? I know a few guys in the U.S. that do this as they have access to them from work, and thought of buying my own a few years ago......until I found out they wouldn't leave me any change out of £4500!!!!

If you have access to one thats a huuuuge bonus as apparently you can detect follicles when they are only a few mm across and so find out very early on when ovulation is in motion and act accordingly. It seems to take a lot of the guesswork out of introductions as visual ovulations are easily missed.

no - but luckily enough we have a young local vet who is fascinated by the reptiles and does his best by them. so when he heard we had a gravid boa, he asked could he scan her - and we were going to bring her back in this week if she hadn't dropped by then
We'll def make use of the scanning facilities in future

that we weak one is a stunner, i hope she makes it as id love to get her i love the patterns on her!!

Hudsy, we were getting worried, hadn't seen you in a while.

haha i was at my dads house lol
where not allowed to use the internet there as i sat for a weekend looking up snakes then my brother or sister downloaded a virus as i let them on for 5mins then they denied it so i gt the blame lol
other than that lol i get on when i can

ha ha!
Thanks hudsy, that ones doing great now. Will stick up updated pics soon. some are going into shed already, although will be quite a few days yet i would imagine!
I still can't get near mum, she's pretty cranky

As I have no clue about all this and find it all fascinating I wondered is there an average (obviously individualism applies) for moody mums Lisa???

I have no idea, Tan! I'm not really a boa person as such.
From what I can gather, it is common for the mothers to be aggressive just after birth. Hey, I was too
But not sure if others have had this aggression continue for a few days.
To be honest, I think she is still just terribly hungry. She hadn't fed since January, and once we cleaned her viv out after birth, she was ready for a small feed. I didn't want to give her her usual large rat so soon after birth. I will prob give her another smaller feed than normal over next few days before giving her a large rat a week afterwards. This is some advice I was given, not sure if everyone agrees with it. If anyone has any other suggestions/advice bring it on! I'm only learning here

I think you're bang on with your feeding strategy Lisa....nice and easy does it...