Albino Burm Baby With No Eyes

MY FEMALE ALBINO BURM LAID HER FIRST CLUTCH THIS APRIL , ( MY FIRST AS A BREEDER). SHE LAID 10 EGGS AND 25 SLUGS AT 25 DAYS AFTER HER POST OVULATION SHED. SHE LAID 3 MORE SLUGS 3 DAYS LATER, AND A BIG WHITE EGG AT 37 DAYS AFTER SHED. AFTER 60 DAYS OF INCUBATING, ONLY 1 EGG WAS GOOD. THIS IS " RONNIE " THE ALBINO BURM WITH NO EYES. I HAVE ONLY SEEN THIS ONE TIME BEFORE. THE SNAKE WAS A 10-12 YEAR OLD SRI LANKA BOA. THIS SNAKE WAS VERY DOCILE AND VERY HEALTHY.
HAS ANYBODY HEARD OF THIS HAPPENING OR ANYONE HAVE OR HAD ONE. IS THIS VERY COMMON? ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED. I HAVE OVER 100 SNAKES IN MY COLLECTION AND AM EXPERIENCED WITH THEM BUT DIDN'T KNOW IF THIS IS RARE OR NOT.

BILL PHERSON
BILLNLISA@SIGECOM.NET

THANKS FOR ANY INFO.
I WILL TRY TO GET PICS UP OF RONNIE TOMORROW.

P.S. I HAVE 20 ALBINO BURMS AND 20 NORMAL BURMS FOR SALE OUT OF ANOTHER FEMALE.
I WANT $125 PLUS SHIPPING FOR ALBINOS, AND $50 PLUS SHIPPING FOR NORMALS. BIG FAT BABIES BORN ON 6-6-05.

Bill,

There was an eyeless Burm recently advertised on Kingsnake. The seller got toasted a bit on the BOI and then removed the ad. You can see it at http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...ad.php?t=68548. You need to get through the first several posts before the eyeless Burm comes up.

I'd recommend that this animal never be sold as a breeder. Perhaps you can keep it as a pet or give it away free to a facility that you know will not breed it.

PS IS YOUR CAPS LOCK BUTTON STUCK ON?

It sounds like the parents of Ronnie are very inbred. That is usually the reason snakes are eyeless or only have one eye. I could be wrong, but that is my take on this.

I have an 04' normal burm with no eyes. When I first told anyone about him I was told to put him in the freezer. Of course I didn't. He is doing great, only tried to bite once. He is around 4'-5' now, eats like a burm, and I don't think he knows he should have eyes.

I have to agree with Jim, never breed it. I will not breed the one I have, and I would never sell him, That way I KNOW he wont breed.

But other then that he is just like any other burm I have.

Good luck with yours.

My guess would be that your incubation temps were off. I've seen it it burms before, particularly when the temps are low. You get one eyed and no eyed babies. Did you incubate them in an incubator or did you let mom do it?

While Wes may well be correct (he's smarter than his signature line might suggest), especially in light of the fact that only one animal hatched, I still would not take a chance on breeding this animal in the future.

Be more specific. Does the snake have no eyes at all, or does it have eyes but is blind ? I remember from last year, someone had one eyed Burms advertised here or on another site. Anyway, I attended a show in Greenville, S.C. in October of last year, and a vendor there had quite a few of one eyed Burms. They actually had two eyes, however one of them was not fully developed, and blind.

With my normal burm, he just has no eyes. Not even the sockets are there.

As to what caused this, I really don't know. The breeder I got him from said he was the only one in the clutch that had any problems. But it was a brother sister breeding. I would think, if it was egg stress more then one of the snakes would of had something wrong with them. I think it was from the inbreeding, but I don't KNOW that, it's just a guess.


Either way he is a great pet, and as funny as some might take this he has one hell of a personality.

I was not shouting.....learned to print all caps in drafting class 20 years ago and transfered it to the keyboard. OOOOOPPPPSSSS!!!!

Ronnie has no eye sockets at all. He has scales where his eyes should be with beautiful color.

The eggs were incubated in a fish shipping stryofoam cooler with a hovabator top on it. I tried to maintain 88 - 90 degrees at all times. If there was any variance in temp, it was overnight, or while at work during the day.

As for the inbreeding opinion....The father came from Atlanta, GA and the mother from Wisconsin.

Sorry for the late replies. My new computer will ship later this week. I am using a friends.

Thanks for the input.

Bill

Originally Posted by Karen Hulvey

It sounds like the parents of Ronnie are very inbred. That is usually the reason snakes are eyeless or only have one eye. I could be wrong, but that is my take on this.

I am not a snake breeder, but IIRC albino boas often have eyeless or one-eyed offspring. So it could be that the gene for albinism also has something to do with eye development.

(Unless I missed something, most of the albino Burms in captivity today can be traced back to Bob Clark's original albinos from the late 80s. And given the relative popularity and inexpensive price of albino Burms, I'm not surprised to see that a lot of people have tried breeding them. Honestly, I'm surprised that we haven't seen MORE aberrations and mutations among albino Burms.