Jamaican Boas Breeding

a weird feeding day today. All holdbacks were given quail chicks, with H2 being offered a chick/knee combo. E2 was offered a pinkie, T3 and N4 were each offered a large fuzzie. The N group was also offered quail chicks, as I feel it's time to upgrade them.

H3 and H6 ate, but E3, H2, and H5 did not. E2 ate, as did N4, but T3 had not eaten the fuzzie by the end of the day, so I also added a pinkie and that was then eaten. It appears T3 still prefers smaller food items, so I will probably try to feed multiple pinkies going forward, since she is clearly getting too big for one lone pinkie.

N1 and N2 ate the quail chick with no issues, and N3 clearly tried to eat it (it was moved all around the cage and had clearly been partially ingested) but gave up. I'll probably try quail chicks again next week for N3.

The strange thing is that the general trend was for the males to have eaten and the females to have declined, which is unusual. Usually the females are the better eaters. Their mother also declined to eat this week, so I'm thinking this might be a seasonal slowdown. It would make sense, since the holdbacks are all the best fed (with never having missed meals due to attempted conversions) and thus, the most prepared for fasting. We'll see how long it lasts.

An update on Lucia:

This is taking a little longer than expected. At least, it's not lining up with last year's timetable. However, I'm still pretty confident that babies are on the way. Sh has been getting a little more restless. Until a few weeks ago, she was basking pretty much 24/7, at which point she started basking during the day and curling up in the lay box at night. The last week or so, she has been going back and forth a few times each day, and is starting to get a little more restless. On one of her little commutes, I managed to snap a few shots of the belly region as it hung over the water bowl. She's looking pretty lumpy down there, especially considering that she hasn't eaten in a few months. Hopefully, babies are imminent. These guys should be lookers, and will be from a completely unrelated pairing (Kingston x Lucia) as last years babies (Montego x Alexandria), of whom I still have a few that I can pair up with this year's babies. God, she's pretty. Enjoy.

Sneak previews of K1L12015. Lots more to come. Man, I feel like a kid on Christmas.

Don't know if Lucy's done, but current count is 21 healthy babies and 0 stillborn or slugs. I have moved all of the babies to a separate, large tub in my rack to await their concurrent shed, which most of them have already started. I also made a point of measuring the length and weight of one of the babies (they all appear roughly the same) and it was 16 inches long and 16 grams. Photobomb to follow (probably tomorrow).

Well, I'm kicking myself pretty hard today. Apparently, that tub that I put them all in wasn't secure enough. There was a gap of about a quarter of an inch in the back, and that was enough of a gap for every single one of them to escape. I had pulled one especially pretty one out and put it in its own tub somewhere else, so I still have that one, but the other twenty all got loose. To complicate things further, in my excitement, I apparently did not shut the birthing cage all of the way, either, and I found a newly hatched baby's shed skin in there, too. This could have been one of the twenty that went back in the cage, shed, and then left the cage again. OR there might have been one or more babies that were born after I removed the babies, that then excaped through the gap. So, all I can say for sure, is that there are a minimum of twenty escapees in my reptile room right now (at least, I hope they're all still in this room). I've started running them down, but they are surprisingly hard to find for something that is bright red, and they have had all night to wander, so there's no real rhyme or reason to their locations. I'll keep updating with results.

There's going to be a lot of this in my future. 3 down. 17+ to go.

4, 5, and 6 are in the bag. This is pretty grueling. It's amazing how many times I can go over the same place and still miss them. #5 was found within a foot of number 4, but still took me 30 minutes in between to notice there was another one.

Might as well use this as another opportunity for raw data. So far, I've noticed that every single one that I've found has been coiled up on or near some sort of wire that they can wrap their tail around. They are also making a clear effort to work themselves into corners and crannies. Every single one so far has been located in the ceiling. Not sure if that means that they are all inclined to go as high as possible, or if these are just the ones that I'm finding the easiest to see, since there is little between me and them. One other big takeaway, the bright red color is a deceptively good camouflage. Unless you're looking right at them, they're almost impossible to spot. I've spent over two hours on it and only managed to find 6, and most of them were almost entirely visible from the floor. Only one (#6) was more than half covered. Still, there does seem to be a steady inclination to go up and perch in corners.

I have also scoured the basement outside of the reptile room. I'm sure they're physically capable of escaping the room, but I'm hoping the decrease in temperature (60s instead of 70s) will deter them if they make it to one of the holes in the plastic that separates the two. So far, I haven't found any outside the reptile room, so here's hoping they all make an effort to at least stay put to this extent. I'm torn between waiting for them to all move and make themselves visible again (presumably, at night) and tearing the place apart looking for them. I'm sure I can come down every day and go looking, and will eventually find most of them. If last year is any indicator, they tend to move at night eventually perch somewhere obvious. On the other hand, there are more than a few carnivorous animals in this room that would be happy to wake up to a perched hatchling in their cage, and I have no doubt that these little specters could shimmer their way into most of the larger cages.

I'm going to take a sanity break for now, but I'll probably go over the place again in an hour or two. I also think I'm going to come down late tonight and get up extra early tomorrow morning, hopefully while some of them are still active. It might be easier to catch them when they're crawling around the wires, instead of perched up in them.

Experience tells me they should be able to survive for at least 3 months without food, and there's plenty of access to water in the reptile room from fishtanks and misting systems, so hopefully, I will be ably to run down most if not all of the escapees in time. And to think, I thought my little foam blocker would prevent me from having to catch a couple of escapees this year. The blocker worked great, but it doesn't much matter if you let them all go afterwards.

#7 rounded up. This was a hard one. Embedded in the rafter hole, and above an air vent. Was quite the pain to get down. They're definitely getting harder to find, so I'm thinking it might be worth waiting until everyone who's still in hiding goes on the move. Hopefully, they'll get spotted en route or will choose a less hidden space tomorrow.

One other thing I am noticing is that almost every one of these guys was perched on a power cable. The only exception was #4, who was still perched on an electric plug. I presume this is because it would be slightly warmer than the ambient temperatures. Using that theory was a big part of how I found #7, as I was following the cable when I came to him.

I can just see myself in that scenario, they will be easier to find late at night though. Apparently they have the same inclinations as my DRMB's, and like to climb for the ceiling. Wait a couple hours after the lights have been off and check the wires, you should find more of them there later.

Originally Posted by toddnbecka

I can just see myself in that scenario, they will be easier to find late at night though. Apparently they have the same inclinations as my DRMB's, and like to climb for the ceiling. Wait a couple hours after the lights have been off and check the wires, you should find more of them there later.

Thanks. That's the hope. I have to think that if I managed to catch 7 today, I should be able get the majority of them after a week or two. It just stresses me out having them all loose like this, especially after waiting so long for their arrival. Haha. Lesson learned, though. Tight. Fitting. Tubs. Only.