Boa breeding... long winded

[JDouglas]

The breeding season is coming up quickly and I find myself pondering over how and what I want to accomplish. I just thought I would post some of my thoughts on breeding boas. Maybe someone could shed more light on this subject for me.

My question is, why do boas often times have complete or partial litters of slugs. I don't think anyone can say with 100% certainty but here are some of my ideas...

I think much of it has to do with temperature. Anyone who has dealt with sperm for farming knows that it has to be maintained in a very narrow window of temperature. If a male boas body is not maintained in this window and is too hot or cool isn't it safe to say he would be temporarily sterile causing slugs if bred to a female. Does this play a part in why males breeding activity increases on temperature rise.

There are also theories that females can hold sperm for short periods until ovulation. In this instance keeping the female outside the correct temps would also kill the sperm inside her. If a boa lays directly on a heat source to maintin her heat couldn't this direct heat on her belly kill the stored sperm? If she wants her body at 88F her belly would be much hotter. Is this a factor?

Does this have anything to do with people having better luck cooling boas and returning heat after ovulation?

Also female boas can ovulate each ovary at different times. Is it possible that if a female ovulates one ovary that all sperm are "used up" and if the other ovary ovulates days later their may be no viable sperm left causing half the litter to be slugs like we often see?

In Iowa it can be difficult to maintain ambient temps in the winter. We have overcame this by heating the entire room. Lets say I am breeding several boas in one room as many often do. If one female ovulates and needs higher temps turning up the room temp up to 82F may interrupt the breeding of other boas closing there window of opportunity. On the other hand not giving the gravid boa warm enough ambient temps can also be problematic. I see radiant heat panels in each cage with seperate thermostats as a solution to this and many other dillemmas, but that would take a bunch of $$$$$$$$.

When incubating python eggs one would keep the eggs incubating at a steady temp of about 90F. Has anyone tried "incubating" an entire boa? Has this research been done? Have breeders maintained gravid boas at a constant temps during an entire pregnancy and documented the results? I think it would be interesting to read a study where a large group of female boas were bred and then kept at an exact room temp with a few boas kept at each temp. My guess is that boas would do very well if maintained at 86 to 90F just like python eggs. Females love to hug the heat when gravid. Again I see the direct belly heat as being a possible problem if it is too hot or to cool.

Do you think females need to be at different temps at each stage of development and she instinctually provides this? From what I have seen most gravid boas just lay right on the heat and don't move from hot to cool very often.

These are just some thouhts I have been kicking around and thought I would share since things have been a little slow here latey and I would love some intellectual conversation.

[Piers]

I know that the sperm in boas needs to be "cooled" to kick start it. The males produce sperm all year round but of poor quality and quantity. Cooling long and cold enough gets good sperm production going.
There are other things to consider ie health and weight of both the male and female. Females should have lots of fat on her this is a given but if shes bred too meny years in a row good weight still won't be enough.
As for the male too heavey may make him a lazy lover. Most males are over weight imo and this may lead to poor mating atemps.
As for "incubating" the females I've kept my females in a room at 84-88 with great sucsess. I think if you were to keep diferent boas and pythons you may want to do things diferently, and I do think that seperat heating is better in the long run though more $$$.
The hole sperm retension thing is poorly studied but imo heat probably has little to do with it,but thats just a guess.
Iknow when breeding the dumerils the males do better when combated. This only takes about 30 second to 2 minutes then pull them apart or you'll have a dead male dumeril, were as the "common" boas don't for the most part don't need to combat.
Well I got to get to work, thats my 2cents.
Piers

[Scales Zoo]

This is a good question. We've only had 1 litter of boas, but when Alice was gravid, I too thought to treat her more like incubating eggs. I had joked about writing a book, now that we have had 1 litter of boas

We didn't give her a "hot spot", because I too thought we wouldn't let python eggs get over 90, so why would we let her bask and get part of her body (and developin babies) over 90.

We put a heat pad on the side of the enclosure. The warm side was 88, the cool side was about 82-84 - ambiently. We got 33 babies, and 4 slugs. The room the enclosure was in was also warm, which is one of the reasons we were able to acheive an ambient temp of 82-84

I plan to do it this way again. And yes, if I had more money, I'd have proportional controls and radiant heat panels in all enclosures.

Ryan

[JDouglas]

Piers,
Thanks for the input. There are many variables and I also agree with you that weight is a BIG one. If a female doesn't have her fat she won't ovulate and a fat male will be lazy. This year we are only breeding boas in our room and will lower the room temp to 70-72 for cooling. When the first female ovulates we will turn the room heat up to about 78 and turn on her hotspot which will also heat ambient cage temp up a few degrees. We are hoping the other males and females will continue to breed at 78F. We have read a lot of info that boas actually breed better on temperature rise and think this may even help get them going. We will see.
While keeping your room at 84-88 did you also provide a hot spot. If so how did the females interact with it?


Ryan,
I had thought about putting the heat on the side of the one end of the cage. Its good to hear that someone had succuess doing this. When I get more $$$ I will definitely upgrade to heat panels and proportional thermostats.

[Piers]

I never used a hot spot with the room at mid to high eighties.Well I tried it a few time and found they didn't use it,too hot I guess. A friend had hot spots and the females would go to the hot spots within a minute or so ove each other and off at the same time too. cool to watch.
I drop the nite temps lower 65-68 and day temp to 74-78 at the coldest (I know some one will give me greaf over this) with no hot spots. I start a very slow cooling down of the snake room in mid October right through to early January. The 65-68 temps I only do for a short time, just a few weeks. I stop feeding about Nov 1 and try after I warm them up in Jan. the Males usually won't eat or eat very little till after breeding is over. Dums Rainbow seem to eat or want to allways.

[Piers]

Oh yeah I also rain on the snakes heavely till the end of breeding. I have a 2 gallon water sprayer. I spray the hole cage 2-4 times a day.
Piers

[JDouglas]

Sounds good Piers, thanks for the info.