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Stav.T
07-27-04, 11:01 AM
Hey there ,

I thought i would share my own experience with boas. I've started by breeding burmese pythons and soon ended up breeding boas as well this was around 88-1989 if i remember good anyways lets say 1990.....Its useless to specify that i've had my share of breedings or my share of litters in fact i dont know exactly how many boas i've bred or how many babies i've produced since then its too many. I feed my snakes when they need it not when i decide.

There is one huge thing that caught my attention in the original pic that Jeff posted..... The boa on the pic is far from being fat or obese. He seems to be just the right weigh. Maybe if this was noticed the thread would not had been what it is ....

Its important to know that there are lines that produce boas that will grow big and fast and there's others that will produce smaller boas that dont grow fast. Eitherway I experienced both and i work with both to. I have pure colombian females that are small even if they are 6 to10 yrs old that produce babies that will stay small just like them ( between 5- 6 - 6-1/2 ). And i have ones that will grow huge and fast. And they eat what they want as frequently as they want.

Its easy to differentiate both. Those that will stay small will become fat or obese without getting an inch in lengh. In contrary the ones from the larger "lines" ones will transform all they eat in lengh insted of accumulating fat.

Another thing that i've noticed in this thread and experienced during the years is the relation between females that are bred early and others that bred way later versus fertility, the # of newborns and size of newborns. If you ask me... there is many myths around those three things.

First and most important ( I think ) is that someone cannot get any reliable conclusions with a small sample of breedings or litters. 5-6-10 breedings is not enough to get any valuable conclusion. A person has to make many dozens ( if not at least a hundred ) to get straight conclusions.

I 've bred females that were 2 yrs old (in fact the youngest was 20 months old) that gave me nice sized litters from 20 to 32 being the biggest with out slugs or stillborns at their first breedings. In contrary some will give all slugs at their first breeding. I have older bigger females that gave me 1 or 2 babies and a bunch of slugs. And older females that give 99% to 100% live babies. You know what? when there is slugs in a litter its my fault. Too many times i hear people putting it on the fertility's back or on the male's bad sperm . Its hard to admit but 99% of the time when a female gives an amount of slugs its due to "my" fault not the female's. There's many factors ( again of what i've experienced ) that are in cause when we get slugs. Some of them .... cooling, high - low temps, female not bred at prime time when the follicules are a 100% ready to receive the male's sperm, not enough "fat" reserves, sperm storage etc....

For the males .....
The youngest male I've bred succesfully was 8 months old with a total lengh of about 2 1/2 feet. Generaly i like to use young males because they are way more active during breeding. Another "myth" that floats around breeding younger males is their nonfertile sperm. In my mind and of what i've experienced if a male starts to produce sperm then he is fertile. ( I've seen it in a microscope many times ). Offcourse if his sperm is viable you can make an opinion of the viability of his sperm if you check it under a microscope when he is an adult. In the opposite you will have males that will only breed succesfully once they are older in the two years range. Its not only size that matters in some cases age matters to and i dont have a clue of what is happening in those cases yet.

Its easy to see when a young male is ready to breed. Usually those young ones will not stop jerking on the female and you can usually see loads of sperm "on" the females several times at the begining of breeding until they find the " tunnel".
Many people saw this at my home people that a few years back thought that males had to be a resonable size to breed. One of them that comes on the forum from time to time is Mike Perry ( ""was"" a friend of mine )who didint believe it was possible. ( same thing as for the capability of boas to eat really large meals.) Last year i tried two males that were 5 months old and just under 2 feet to see if they were capable of reproducing , they were jerking over the females but not as usual, i never noticed any sperm on the females and i never saw any succesfull penetrations. Only tail to tail. They soon lost interest in the females. The results were 100% slugs.

I've bred quite a few species of snakes and i saw this , young males, ( which popular belief ) says that they are too young to breed that give 100% fertile clutches. The most recent one for those who follow the regius forum is a high contrast albino male breeding 10 females. You know what? When he started breeding he was around 7 months of age with a weight of around 500 grams. He just gave 4 clutches of 100% fertile eggs of 100% het albinos, no slugs. 6 females to go and i will not be surprised if they to give 100% fertile eggs.

Another thing i've noticed with boas in popular thinking and which is a wide spread myth, is the myth that says that females will not eat when gravid ( soem will eat until they give birth soem will stop right after ovulation ) or will get stunted if bred to early or they will give smaller babies or less babies.....This is not true as well. I'm always amazed to see how female boas get back all their fat reserves after giving birth. Usually after 2-3-4 meals they are top shape as they were before breeding and start to put up lengh to after they gained their losses. By the way some females can breed 5 yrs in a row and others will breed every two years. In both cases they still grow and there's absolutely no effect on how many babies they'll get or the size of them.

The only size relation i've noticed is ( what I believe ) when a female ovulates two times sveral weeks appart. When this happens you usually see difference in size of the babies in the same litter. You can clearely see babies that have big bellies full of undigested fluids and at the same time babies that have totaly or close to totaly digested all their fluids. Its a clear evidence in my mind. I'll know more about that soon because i'm about to buy an ultrasound machine to be able to see inside a female's body during pregnancy without any harm.

Well thats it for now there's many more things I would say ( my personnal experiences ) in this thread because its a really interesting topic but i have a language barrier;) I've started to write a book its a long time project, its gonna be in french first but it will be translated in english.

So my word to Jeff ...... I would breed that boa with your albino male this comming season if he hits the 2 1/2 3ft. If he is ready you will see him jerking all over the female and you will surely notice sperm on the female's body. If he dosent breed well the only thing you will loose is your time.

I hope nobody fell asleap while reading this......;)

Stav......zzzzzzzzzzzz;)

dave68
07-27-04, 11:14 AM
Very good stuff Stav, sorry you didn't make the eight page mark Jeff, maybe we can all stay on topic this time LOL!!!

Dave

bistrobob85
07-27-04, 11:25 AM
Wow, what a post! Now i feel like breeding my 1.5 year old male :P He's nearly 4.5 feet, if someone is interested, hehe. Well Stav, im VERY glad you start writting your book in french... you know as well as i do that we dont have too much french litterature about snakes... For my part, i'm writting a guide on the maintenance of water dragons.

BOAS_N_PYTHONS
07-27-04, 11:44 AM
STAV:

Very informative and its this kind of information I like seeing here because its snake related and especially boa related.

My own experience is about 10 births or egg lays, but my own direct 100% experience has only been:

CLEOPATRA (Colombian Boa) x RAMSES (Colombian Boa) = 24 babies - 1 slug, 23 live healthy babies.

MOON (Colombian Boa) x MARS (Colombian Boa) = 18 babies - 1 deformed dead, 17 live healthy babies.

ARES (Guyana Redtail Boa) x ODIN (Guyana Redtail Boa) = 19 babies - 19 live healthy babies.

MINHA (Surinam Redtail Boa) x COUTO (Surinam Redtail Boa) - 21 babies - 21 live healthy babies.

EOS (Brazilian Rainbow Boa) x SATURN (Brazilian Rainbow Boa) - 13 babies - 13 live healthy babies

Soon I hope to have the opportunity with egg layers like ball pythons and green tree pythons.

I am still learning too, but the few boa successes I have had so far were are done somewhat different, all were standard text book like but I played with a few factors like temperatures, time, and introduction and feeds..........all went great and I kinda have a formula that works but it is not bullet proof yet till I have a few dozen more births.

But thanks STAV for the post and information.

Cya...

Tony

JaredAren
07-27-04, 07:21 PM
Tony,

The few boa successes I have had so far were are done somewhat different, all were standard text book like but I played with a few factors like temperatures, time, and introduction and feeds..........all went great and I kinda have a formula that works

I would love to hear more about your formula and the factors you played around with.

http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiles/stuff/falbino2big.JPG

Jeff_Favelle
07-27-04, 07:23 PM
Good post Stav. I don't think any of my albino males will be old enough to breed the thre 6-foot girls I have. I'm not going to waste them on anything else, so I'll just wait it out.

But I agree, she isn't fat. Not even close. She is sooooooo strong, and tuff as nails. That's why I love boas!! Not dainty at all!!!


Cheers all! Boas ROCK!

CHRISANDBOIDS14
07-27-04, 08:19 PM
Very informative, interesting, and awesome post Stav! I wouldn't mind purchasing a copy of your book in french(Je suis franco albertain)! I also must agree with Jeff........BOAS DO ROCK! I, however:(, havent had the chance to breed them yet and probably won't till my parents say I can get too many more snakes.

Have a good evening,

C.

BOAS_N_PYTHONS
07-27-04, 10:24 PM
JAREDAREN:

I pretty much said it in the previous post.

I am still learning too, but the few boa successes I have had so far were are done somewhat different, all were standard text book like but I played with a few factors like temperatures, time, and introduction and feeds..........all went great and I kinda have a formula that works but it is not bullet proof yet till I have a few dozen more births.

Its not a bullet proof formula but I played with small factors in each stage of the process and saw there are practices that are myths like STAV stated and wider windows of opportunities in breeding as well. The full details are extensive and like STAV staed he is creating a book as in my research I am doing a rough draft with my experiences and will then seek to create my own journal to a book with more experience. But these steps are still into the future because I myself set a boa to breed close to a hundred animals before I can really speak like the experts out there.

I have a few mentors that have helped with information, knowledge and there experiences that I respect alot in this hobby.

Cya...

Tony

JaredAren
07-28-04, 08:01 AM
I thought if you had learned a few little tricks or if you had tips it would be awesome to pass these on ot others. Watching all the videos and reading all the books in the world will not give newbies the knowledge they will earn form just one breeding. I rarely see much of this knowledge passed on in these forums. So many different beliefs are out their concerning boa breeding and it would be interesting to see what a large number of people have really done to get thier boas to breed.

Here are a few topics that are not clear in anything I have read or viewed.

cool or not to cool and when
how cool & how long / DTH / DTL
light cycles
UTH on and off - when
ambient temps after ovulation
hot spot after ovulation
when to pair up / seperate
misting
breeding size for males and females

Like you said all the factors would be an extensive amount of info, but it would be cool to see how consistent these factors are in a large group of breeders.