Failure - Stillborn

[JDouglas]

Terry, a close friend of mine had a Rosy give birth yesterday. It was a disaster. She birthed a few slugs and this one dead baby. My friend is unsure what caused this. Here is some info. First off both Rosy's were very small. While we built his snake facility his Rosy's were moved to my house and were slightly cooled (76F with hotspot) for a few weeks. When bringing them back to his house they were placed together in a tub for transport and the male immediately began riding the female. This was in late April and they were kept together for a couple weeks. The female grew very large and was kept at 80-83 with a 92F hotspot. She was on the hotspot the entire time she was gravid. She began to thin down and Terry thought she was reasorbing so about two weeks ago he fed her a mouse. Then about a week ago he fed her two mice. Yesterday she delivered what looked to be three slugs and this still born. So does anyone have any insight or advice for Terry. Even though it is one baby he feels terrible and thinks that feeding her a big meal may have caused her to deliver early?

http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/dead%20rosy/1.JPG

http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/dead%20rosy/2.JPG

http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/dead%20rosy/3.JPG

http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/dead%20rosy/4.JPG

http://showcase.netins.net/web/reptiless/stuff/dead%20rosy/5.JPG

[Stockwell]

Jaremy, that is not what I would call a complete disaster... I've had that happen a few times.
Rosies are not always a piece of cake to breed.
With only a few ova produced it doesn't give lots of chances for error.
This year I had a deformed still born mid Baja, and I also for the second year in a row got 2 full litters of slugs from Borregos, and two males were even used...
With young females, there is often slugs and stills or deformities. The reason it's not a disaster, is at least you now know that both the male and female are viable, and fertilization is possible.
In a case like mine where I get borrego slugs year after year, that is much more problematic, as I've yet to prove I can get viable sperm to fertilize ovum, and that's with two pair of the same locale...
Tell your friend to rest easy, he/she ain't alone...
Next year they'll be bigger and probably will reproduce better.
Make sure a hot spot of 90F is provided for gravid rosies, and never pick them up when the pregnancy is advanced.
Another tip, is make sure no water bowl is preset when birth is getting close. I know several people that have had Rosies birth into the water bowl which drowns perfectly good babies... Now that would be a disaster

[JDouglas]

Actually this baby was found in the water bowl. do you think it drowned or is it a preemie that was born still.

[Stockwell]

It probably drowned.. how's that for esp?

[Ian]

Haha, nice call Roy. Just like Roy I had six clutches of midbaja rosy boas this year. Four of the six were sisters and all but one of the sisters had 6 babies and the other one had one live and one still born and four infertile. So you should see it as a diaster just bad luck.

Cheers
Ian