Second Breeding Attempt

So I'm a fairly new face around here. I'll spare the long story and describe this particular issue. I'll make a second post detailing my horribly failed first breeding attempt afterwards, heh.

Anyhow, suffice to say that I am a university student studying biology. I've been keeping and researching reptiles for over 19 years, though I only began with boids 8 years ago. My first breeding attempt was in 2009, and was less than successful.

This year, my Ambrosius is rather large and should make a wonderful father (if he agrees, of course!). He was born in 2006 and bred from Bob Clark lines. He's a type2 anery Colombian, and he's the most docile reptile I've ever owned. Although he is not the most stunning boa, and his progeny won't sell for high prices, he has always been and will always be my favorite boa. I bought him from a man named Chris (who ostensibly purchased him from bobclark.com), an employee of Tropical Encounters. Unfortunately the store has since closed in my area, and he now works with Inked Reptiles, or Inked Up Reptiles or some such thing. Ambrosius is currently 7'6" in length, and very heavy. I'm unsure of his weight, but he is very muscular and eats one 1.5-2 pound f/t rat every 7-9 days.

A friend of mine asked if he could breed his 2009 female motley purchased from Jeremy Stone, and his 2008 unproven double het snow possible het stripe female from Baker's Boas to him. I was a bit unsure about adding 2 females for Ambrosius to breed with, but eventually I agreed. The greater risk is to my friend's females if they produce mainly slugs, and if he's willing to breed them I suppose I am as well. I agreed to take 30-40% of the total viable offspring with the understanding that I get first pick from both clutches. I'm excited for my second breeding attempt and hope it goes a bit better this time around. I've been researching more, and from a wider base of sources, and hopefully I won't make the same mistakes I made in 2009.

During the breeding process I'll probably keep this thread updated, as sort of a chronicle. I'll add pictures as I am able, starting with a couple of Ambrosius with this message. Any advice or comments are appreciated, so long as they are constructive or humorous. Please no intentional offense, this is my second time and I am still learning about this new and exciting aspect to my herpetocultural hobby.

Thank you all for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you over the coming several months

My first breeding attempt was a pairing between Kalypso and Ambrosius. Kalypso was a 6'4" female Colombian boa I purchased from an acquaintance in the military. He was leaving and couldn't take care of her in his absense. She was absolutely stunning for a normal Colombian, with an incredibly melanistic tail and very intense pinks in her face and along her ventral surface. At the time, my Ambrosius was only about 3 1/2 years old, but already about 6 feet in length and very active. I decided I wanted to try making boa babies.

I read a book entitled "Captive Husbandry and Propagation of the Boa Constrictors and Related Boas" by David Fogel, and followed it as closely as I knew how. I dropped ambient temperatures to 70 at night and 78 during the day. I cycled the lights with 8 hours on and 16 off. I stopped feeding. The brumating period was 4 weeks, followed by introducing Kalypso into Ambrosius' cage. However, I somehow managed to gain the impressino that I should only leave them together for 3-4 weeks.

After 4 weeks, I separated the pair of them. Then an unexpected heat-wave hit and summer temperatures rose to 103-109 on average. The house we lived in at the time had no air conditioning. Approximately 2 weeks before I was expecting babies, a huge storm hit and lasted 3 days. On the final day of the storm, Kalypso gave birth. In the clutch were 28 slugs and 4 baby boas. All of the babies had yolk-sacks still outside their body, connected by an umbilicus. 2 of them ruptured their yolk sacks while breaking free of the soft, membranous egg.

I placed the other two in a carefully-tended box lined in moist paper towels, and sprayed the towels with warm water to keep them moist. I knew they would likely not make it, but I wanted to at least try to care for them as well as I knew how. Of course, they only lived about another 2 hours.

This was my first and only breeding attempt thus far.

Oh, forgot to post those pictures of Ambrosius. Here they are!

I made a mistake, Ambrosius was born in 2005. My apologies.

Still plenty of time before the breeding commences. He shed 2 days ago and deposited today. I tried to feed him today and he refused, which is a bit unusual for him. I haven't started changing temps or photoperiod at present.

I intend to offer food again tomorrow, then again on the 2nd, 9th, and 16th of November. On the 26th of November I'll begin lowering his temps just slightly. At present he has a 91 F warm end and a 82F cool end. I'll be dropping it to a 76 cool at night and 80 during the day on the cool end, with the basking down to 88. All this is based off of things I've read from other breeders, but of course many of you guys have more experience than I do with this stuff. If you have some advice, or something that works well for you, please don't hesitate to mention it.

On Dec. 21st I will introduce both females into the male's enclosure. There they will remain for a period of 13 weeks, with temperatures restored to my usual. Humidity will stay at 61% throughout all of this, since I find that level of humidity works well for shedding ease but doesn't encourage RI to develop.

That's the plan at least. I'll be separating them after 7 weeks and I'm sure by then Ambrosius will be one hungry guy. Hopefully it all works out great!

Did I seriously say after 7 weeks... I meant after 13 weeks.

Just curious what made you decide to us two females?

Fair question. My friend, who owns them, mentioned that Ambrosius is a bit larger than they. He has bred once, and I clearly didn't leave them together long enough. His hypothesis is that, given Ambrosius' size and lack of breeding activity, he may be a bit less than delicate with his females.

Of particular concern for him was the idea that one of the two females he wishes to breed has never been bred before. While I fail to understand the full implications, he seemed of the opinion that it would be better to have two females for Ambrosius to divide his attentions between. Since this is only my second breeding attempt, and he has produced successful litters in the past, I deferred to his judgement.

Is this a common practice among breeders? Based on your question I would assume not. Could it potentially be a bad idea if all the boas involved are healthy and mature?

Honestly, I've never breed my boa's so you actually have more breeding experience then I do. I have heard of a few breeders placing males with multiple females & heard others claim they experienced better outcomes using a single female. I'm sure you'll get some great tips, there are a lot of knowledgeable people here. Keep me posted & good luck.

beautiful anery for such a big boy! Good luck on your pairings!

My first year trying to breed boas, I was successful with a large het albino male that was placed with a large normal and then also an albino female. I did not place the two girls together with him at the same time, I switched him between the two ladies. They ended up giving birth about 1 week apart in 2003. The 1st litter with the normal was 34 and the 2nd litter with the albino was 18 (although that litter WAS premature and only 4 of the little ones survived - I suspect it had more to do with the female than the male).

Since then, I had only done 1 pairing per season simply because I found that first time to be quite overwhelming. Oh and I don't drop temps, I leave them at their normal temps year round.