terrible news.........

cb76 · #1 (**permalink**) 07-15-2002, 07:19 AM

hello all

will here, aka cb76 with a bit of bad news.

as some of you know i have a very large collection, i have over 100 boas and pythons now (and colubrids too!) kept at 2 different places. some are with my dad and some i snuck into my house to keep with me.( i have nosy neighbors and had to sneak 'em.)

anyways, i have been working alooooot lately and knew i would have no free time last week. so the last time i saw the snakes at my fathers house (before yesterday) was last sunday!

my snakes are taken care of. nothing sort of excellence when it comes to them.
i took all the necessary precautions and even switched to larger bowls to keep them with water!

well, i go there yesterday to find a very large female had given birth somethime during the week- one that i didnt even suspect as gravid! (she was on the babies at the time of me finding them)

what happened was she crushed and killed all the babies. it didnt smell like rotting corpses in the room, it just smelled like a large dog took a dump.
one of the windows doesnt have a screen so flys got in. i noticed a few maggots.
i just covered everything with aspen and threw it out. so i dont have a count.....but there were babies.

i feel terrible.... my female had to sit in that stuff for a while. dont worry- she got all cleaned up.

she lost quite a bit of weight from the birth.

AHHHHHHHHH........ i just feel like crap. i am never gonna stay away that long again.

so add to the births here (which have been plentyful) a HUGE MISHAP. the entire litter was gone.

dont worry......every one else was (and is still) in perfect condition. all the babies i have left too are perfectly healthy.

i jst figured i would tell this. no matter what you do- poopy happens!
dont stay away for too long.

will
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BWSmith · #2 (**permalink**) 07-15-2002, 07:32 AM

That sucks bro! You never can tell 100%.
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Constrictor_BO · #3 (**permalink**) 07-15-2002, 09:36 PM

Dang dude.. that bites.
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Ophiophagus-hannah · #4 (**permalink**) 07-16-2002, 12:06 AM

Rough loss! At least you weren't too attached to them...
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najaboy · #5 (**permalink**) 07-16-2002, 12:13 AM

Sorry to hear about what hapened Will.
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faze · #6 (**permalink**) 07-16-2002, 01:16 AM

dang man sorry to here that [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img]
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Ritchie · #7 (**permalink**) 07-16-2002, 01:21 AM

man that is rough....sorry about the loss.

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Boaphile · #8 (**permalink**) 07-16-2002, 01:30 AM

I hope this makes you feel a little better...

Unless the female gave birth under something and then sat on top of that and smothered the babies your babies were probably born dead. My experience is that Boas do not crush their own live babies. I have watched a female for hours after having babies to see her crawl ever so carefully through the mass of babies and goo with ever resting on top of a baby. This is an amazing miracle of "evolution" LOL (I am not a believer in everything that novelist Darwin wrote) to see. Just the same it is a wonderful thing to see when you have the chance too see it. I have a Peruvian that gave birth this morning. Unfortunately she only had one baby and 28 slugs but she has avoided the baby and messed all over the slugs. Boas have an instinct to help and or protect new born babies. Resting on top of babies would tell me they were probably born dead. Still born for some reason. That is my opinion. It's very hard to believe the entire litter could have been smashed my the mother. A few perhaps but not the whole litter. It would have been more likely you would have found her with babies all over her back looking around to protect those babies from YOU! She may have still been doing this even though they were already dead.

Not a lot of comfort here I am afraid but there probably wasn't anything you could have done.

Sorry about that,

Jeff
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Ti · #9 (**permalink**) 07-16-2002, 09:17 PM

Will,

I am so sorry to hear about this! I wish that there were something I could do. Good luck with the remainder of your gravid females!

Ti aka Rob
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Bry · #10 (**permalink**) 07-16-2002, 09:46 PM

Oh man, that's rough. Sorry to hear about it. [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img]

Bry
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SteveP · #11 (**permalink**) 07-16-2002, 09:53 PM

Nothing hurts more to an animal lover than to discover a loss like that...but I have to agree 100% with Boaphile that something went wrong, out of your control. Doesn't make the loss any less severe...sorry to hear the bad news Will! [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img]
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XzyluM · #12 (**permalink**) 07-17-2002, 05:46 AM

Sorry to hear man. Rough loss. [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img]
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cb76 · #13 (**permalink**) 07-17-2002, 11:15 PM

hey everyone.

will here. thanks for all your comments. it does suck to see that.

hey jeff- thanks, that does make me feel better. this was a female i did not suspect as gravid!
something could have gone wrong. she was there for a few days too!

i wanna look at it the way you have said it. i saw it plenty this year. all the mammas were using their head and neck areas to gently move the babies around.....kinda getting them started.

this gal was sitting on them!

i wish i did a full count and a better inspection of the mess, but my stomach was kinda turning.

anyways, thank you all very much!!!!

will
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#14 (**permalink**) 07-21-2002, 08:32 AM

Sorry to hear of such a loss Will [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img] [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img] I would go with what Jeff has said though even. We had Andy in with DIAMOND..our HUGE BCI when she birthed this year in MAY. HAd to for like a couple days while hubby reinforced ANDYS cage yet again this year lol. Then when he ever came outside and told me that ANDY had babies... My first thought was that DIAMOND had crushed em too. Ya shoulda seen me yelling at my husband to get them babies out of that cage asap ! lol Not a single one got crushed though. I did notice that both DIAMOND and ANDY were moving about very carefully around the babies in the cage also..even though I was freaking out hehe.

We know ya care deeply for your snakes and if you even had a clue she was gravid you would have probably been closer by thmom too. BUT it was prolly somehting you wouldnt have been able to change the outcome of ..even if ya were standing right there at time of birthing... [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif[/img]
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