Yolk Baby

Last year, Living Gems experienced our very first “yolk baby.”

We discovered her still buried in the slime pile -- quite literally: she was underneath the newspaper, which was drenched in clear thick birth sludge. At first we thought she was a stillborn, but that passed as soon as she started trying to defend herself against the unwanted intrusion of my hand.

After several minutes of struggle with slimy paper and slippery baby, we managed to untangle her from the mess and place her in a drawer:



We kept her very warm and humid to prevent the yolk from hardening. We gave her a day and a half to work it off, then decided to remove it ourselves. But when we set up to operate, we found she had knocked it off herself. A day later, most of the umbilical cord fell off as well. As her belly was still very large, we then added a 40-hour heat pack to give her a boost in digesting any absorbed yolk.



She thankfully pulled through fine, and after two sheds looked like this:



One year later, when she was finally sold, she was a perfectly healthy little girl who has eaten 32 times and shed eight times. The last photo I have of her was from December (aged four months), and she looked like this:



Score one for baby boa resilience!

May this year's litters be just as tough.

Thank you for reading,

Great job, Cliff. I lost half a litter to yolk belly problems this year. :-/

Thanks for the info. My one and only BRB litter was born in June, with 2 yolk babies out of 25 neonates. Unlike yours neither had absorbed much yolk at all, and they were very pale and quite weak when they were born. Even now at four months old their color isn't as developed as your girl's was when she was born.

Did you have to assist feed yours at all or did she eat on her own from the start? I'm still assist-feeding mine, though I have hopes the larger of the two will finally start feeding on his own soon - he finally wrapped my finger tightly last night after starting to swallow his meal.

I'm so sorry to hear that, Diem! It can be very touch and go with this condition.

Hi Melinda! I had another baby born this year slightly premature, and Mom dropped her in water. Three of her similar early siblings drowned, and she almost did, too. I had to nurse her though a slightly large belly; she was pale and weak like yours (I'm sure hours in the water did not help). She's fine now, but like yours is still far less colorful than her siblings.

I did not have to assist feed, thankfully. One of the litter will still only take live most weeks though.

Good luck, and feel free to hit me up any time with followup questions!

I like reading your posts Cliff. Great job too. I'll be looking foward to your next litter and always looking for those beautiful pics that come with the post.

Why thank you, Rich! Brazilian posts tend not to draw a lot of comments here, but I'm hoping to change that, and appreciate you reading and commenting!