Am I the only paranoid one?

Boaphile · #1 (**permalink**) 07-25-2006, 01:53 PM

OK, so I have been breeding Boas for a while. A long while. More than 20 years. I have produced quite a few animals and yet... Every single time I feed my animals, while I have females gravid, I am always a little weirded out fearing that something bad could happen with one of my gravid females while I'm feeding the other animals. Does anyone else worry about this? Now mind you, nothing has ever happened of a negative nature ever. It just has never happened. But! I still worry about it. I mean think about it. In the wild, Boas are never subject to the intense aroma of FOOD that they are subject to in captivity. A single animal that happens by in the wild, with the whole wide world to dilute the smell, means that the intensity of that smell is so minute, there is no way we could smell it. Now fast forward to my place. I'm dragging about a 30 gallon trash can half filled with fresh killed rats. About 200 of them at a crack and there is absolutely no missing the pungent odor that permeates every cell of my body. It STINKS! So the smell is overwhelming! Now, the gravid animals that are due soon are not fed. This though most would happily take a rat of two. So I worry they will do something wrong or that in the excitement of smelling all those tasty morsels that they might hurt themselves banging on the door or that they may deliver their unborn babies prematurely.

Nothing of this sort has ever happened. Ever. I have never had a female give birth on the day of feeding. That just has not happened either. I have had a female give birth the day after feeding everyone else. So nothing bad has ever happened. I don't think it will but, I still find myself worrying about it. Does anyone else do this?

JuliusSqueezer · #2 (**permalink**) 07-25-2006, 02:26 PM

Perhaps you do have something to be paranoid over. The chance that 200 freshly killed rats are all parasite free is pretty close to nill, Jeff. Even if you raise them and keep them wormed. Worming only kills intestinal worms. Nothing still in the lungs, lymph, blood, muscle and all the other lovely places that parasites end up in are effected by worm meds. Take cats and dogs for example. Even the best kept dogs and cats seldom have litters of pups or kittens that don't have worms. It's almost a given. But mom didn't have worms...so how did the babies get them? There are a couple of ways actually, shared blood supply is obvious but there are also some that burrow into hopefully the blood supply and follow it to the lungs where they drink blood till they pupate and then crawl up the trach and over into the esphogus, into the gut to repeat the cycle. Some however don't make it to the lungs and get trapped in muscle or other organs. These of course will never show up in a fecal. How could they? So parasite free is usually somewhat of a farce by anyone making the claim....many of these trapped parasites seem to for some reason migrate to the embryonic sac and often have better luck infecting the gut of the developing offspring. Sometimes they get trapped there too but later infect that animal's offspring...seemingly skipping a generation of worms. Talk about a head scratcher lol...anyway, frozen thawed is a little more trouble but it might ease some of your paranoia.

Kent K25 · #3 (**permalink**) 07-25-2006, 04:47 PM

If you truly are worried about this then house your pregnant boas in a separate room. I doubt you're losing any sleep over it as is, but it's something you could easily solve. I realize it would require a lot of snake moving...but wouldn't a "boaphile" want to do that if it was a real concern?

JASONG263 · #4 (**permalink**) 07-25-2006, 05:59 PM

I AM NOT ONE TO QUESTION BUT, DO YOU THINK THAT YOU HAVE DONE THIS SO LONG THAT YOU ARE BOUND TO LOSE ONE, OR IS IT SUPERSTION OR WHAT DO YOU THINK IT IS?
WHAT EVER IT IS GOOD LUCK AND YOU HAVE THE EXPERINCE TO BEAT THE LUCK.

TAKE CARE

Boaphile · #5 (**permalink**) 07-25-2006, 11:29 PM

I guess I just love to worry. I don't seem to ever get over it. I always worry about my babies including the ones that have not been born yet. If someone would have asked me this same question, I would say you don't have anything to worry about. But then, I love to worry.

Also, moving gravid animals is a huge no no in my mind. I only pick up a gravid animal if I have absolutely no other choice. It happens very very rarely. In fact, most of my females never ever get picked up at all. I scoot them to clean around them or have them move up to their shelves where I have shelves.

Kent K25 · #6 (**permalink**) 07-25-2006, 11:52 PM

I was referring to moving the cages rather than the animals alone...

As for your worrying, it is much preferred to disinterest.

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