what would you do with kink tail boas?

Just curious, how did you go about doing it.

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hatchet isn't as good as blunt force head trama, this is what I have done before. once I did the fridge to freezer but would prefer the vet or the head trama. Hatchet, just cutting the head off, the brain will still live (it's been documented with rattlesnakes that the head can survive for up to an hour after decapitation) so if you decap, also have to pith the brain.

CO2 is not a good way to euthanize reptiles, it works for mammals but reptiles have too slow of a metabolism (I believe?), it would take way too long.

http://www.anapsid.org/euth.html
http://www.anapsid.org/decap.html

Reglardless, it's done and kudos to you, I believe it is the ethical thing to do.

As for the cause, could be a number of factors including but not limited to temperature and/or genetics. In the wild, not all the babies make it or are born perfect either (as I'm sure you already know).

I think it was a few years ago that somebody (Rick - crotalusadamanteus - maybe?) posted about an attempt at euthanizing a snake in a CO2 chamber...it definitely wasn't comparable to gassing rodents. From what I recall, the snake writhed around for some time.



*Edit* It wasn't Rick...but I may have talked with him about it after the fact. Art Klass had a bad experience with attempting to euthanize snakes in that manner.

Excellent and informative reference articles, April. Thank you!

I would imagine the same issues or putting snakes under for surgery with "gas" would yield the same issues as using CO2 on them. When the vet was trying to knock out one of my snakes she told me a big issue is that snakes do not take in air as often and as quickly as mammals and often times hold their breath if they manage to sense something a miss. I was holding the back of my boa's head while they had the mask on her and it took a considerable more amount of time to get her under than my dogs because she was holding her breath as well as taking in small ones.

Rich, Sorry to hear about this. Unfortunately, as bad as it stinks, this part of the hobby has to be dealt with when breeding. I think most of us that have produced more than a few clutches/litters have been in the same situation. Never gets any easier, but know that you did the right thing.

Rich, Props to you for doing the deed! As breeders we owe these animals a responsibility to not just produce offspring, but to produce the best offspring that we can. I was in your shoes earlier this year with a litter. It sucks, usually the ones that need culled are the nicer ones of the litter. I culled a couple earlier this year that were nowhere near those. Good luck and wish you the best with the rest of your season. Jeff

Props for the balls
Unless you know for sure the kinks were not due to a cool gestation period
then culling is a must. Cool gestation is proven to throw kinks and wild patterns
in many species of snakes.

They can reproduce litter after litter of perfect examples
and their offspring as well.

But gentic defects are different and they have an adverse affect for generations

Hatchet is quickest and probably most humane if you got the nerves to do it. Most people don't, thats why they choose to place them in the fridge then later in the freezer. It is much slower that way. I personally just use the hatchet. It makes my stomach sick (I have only done it once), but makes more sense then placing them in the fridge/freezer.