! Gravid boa death.

It's a real bummer. It also happens to everyone who breeds boas, or any other snake for that matter.

She didn't look incredibly fat so perhaps she's just got a load of slugs in there and one got stuck.

Keep us posted and try not to loose heart.

I am very sorry to hear about your female. This is also my first year to breed and I imagine it is tough to get this far and have problems.


I hope you stay with it. I would like to help you out, maybe give you something to look forward to. I have an albino female that is gravid from a possible super ghost, or I should say I'm 95% sure she is gravid. If she has a good litter, I would like to give you a female dh snow. If the male proves out to be a super then it will be a female triple het. All you have to do is pay the shipping. Hopefully a growing female will help you to keep you eyes on the future.

Please help me pray for a good, healthy litter. I will keep you posted on her progress here in this forum.

She was beautiful and I am so sorry for your loss.

Thank you all SO much for your kindness. While I am still heartbroken, your comments do give me hope. This hobby may have its share of scammers and ill-intentioned people, but the kindness of those like yourselves FAR outweighs anything...

I think you're right - when I palpitated her abdomen, I felt a lot of jellyish liquid with one hard lump closest to her vent - nothing that felt like little baby snake bodies, so more than likely I'm thinking she strained hard trying to push and either just that strain killed her, or perhaps she pushed so hard that she ruptured something. I will update you all with the necropsy results, and I know I will always blame myself (you know - if I would have seen, maybe I could have done something), but barring watching her every minute, I think I took good care of her. This is hitting me different than just having a sick pet, because I MADE the decision to breed her, and if I hadn't bred her, she probably wouldn't be dead. But then again, when I first purchased her as a baby, it was with intentions of eventually breeding her with the male I had....

I am trying my hardest to be positive but am trying to look at it like losing a gamble... that doesn't mean I will lose the gamble next time... but the surinam I have who also may be gravid (who just shed yesterday, so if she is gravid, that was her POS) hopefully will not turn out the same way. Fingers crossed....

Thank you all again, I can't express how much your kind thoughts mean to me. Not many of my friends or relatives understand my reptile hobby....

Sorry for your loss.

I have 2 girls that I have had since they were babies and they are 10 years old now. They are just my pets, not breeders, but I finally decided to breed them this year, and am hoping nothing like that happens here too.

Got some news - my vet left a short message on my answering machine, I need to talk to him tomorrow, but apparently DeeDee was not pregnant whatsoever. The swelling that she developed within the last two weeks, which I thought was her getting ready to give birth, was an intestinal abcess. Apparently the intestine looped back on itself and got infected, and that was the hard lump I felt in her belly when I felt her after she died.

What horrible timing - had I not thought she was pregnant, I would have thought the swelling in her back half and losing a bit of weight in her front half was an issue to be concerned about.... Will update further when I speak to the vet tomorrow.

Sorry to hear that it was an intestinal problem.

Sorry for your loss.
Please keep us posted, the information you can provide will surely help others.

Would love to hear anything you can share with us about this when you get more info.


Rick

I have actually had similar things happen twice. Both times the snake began swelling, refusing food, and acting gravid after being in with a male. Turns out that both times they were impacted and died while I was waiting for birth.