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! Gravid boa death.

liquidleaf

liquidleaf

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I just checked on my female Hog Island Boa, DeeDee, who was gravid, and saw that she didn't move when I opened the lid to her cage. I touched her - and found that she is dead.

She was fine this morning - I've been checking on her 3 and 4 times a day because she was near her due date. I went out to do a few errands and checked her when I returned.

:( I am horribly saddened, this was my first attempt at breeding.

Question - sounds gross but should I bother seeing if there were any viable young that were stuck? She had spread urates around the cage but there was no other fluid. She is still soft (no rigor - I think this happened only shortly before I got home), it feels like there is something hard right near her vent though. The rest of her "pregnancy" weight is soft, I feel no wriggling or anything. I just don't want to put her in the fridge (she will definitely be necropsied) if there is a possibility that there are living young still in there.

Please advise....... :crying:

Here is a picture of her as of a few minutes ago.
DeeDee-Death1.jpg


I am completely devastated.
 
I answered your other thread but thought I would bump this one so you can get more advice.

:(
 
:( I just spoke to an emergency exotic vet - she said that rigor (and eye-glazing) takes a while to occur in snakes, so she may have been dead for several hours, and that even if she was only dead for an hour, the young will be dead if there are any. I'm so upset about all of this, she was fine this morning. I feel like I should have been watching her every minute now, maybe I could have done something....
 
You wont lose anything by trying though, so I would try. At least then there wont be any what-ifs...
:(
 
liquidleaf said:
I feel like I should have been watching her every minute now, maybe I could have done something....
Click to expand...

Sometimes these things just happen. Don't blame yourself, you couldn't watch her 24/7 :(
 
Just got back from the emergency vet. There were no heartbeats detected at all, so if there are babies, they have all passed as well. The vet said that unborn boas will die within minutes of the mother dying, because they do depend on the mother for oxygen. So if I would have cut her open immediately, there would have been a chance.... I wish I would have been at home when she went into labor.

I knew there were risks in breeding... I'm just so sad and disappointed that it happened on my first try... I raised DeeDee from a little baby, too. Thank you for all the condolences, and I'll let you know what the necropsy says when it is performed next week.

:(
 
Such a sad thing to have happen to you. I feel bad for you Lauren. I hope you don't let this unfortunate experience deter you from future endeavors.
I think I would be devastated if that happened to me. I have a few I raised from babies. One for 8 yrs this month, and I worry about her every day.

Don't let it keep you down. Gotta go forward.


My condolences
Rick
 
That is so very heartbreaking to hear. I'm sorry for your losses but please , please don't give up. Its devestating to get hit with that lind of loss and you find yourself doubting your abilities and sometimes asking why you would want to stay in it. Been there a couple times myself but I keep plugging away at it and usually find different reasons to stay with it. Hopefully you'll keep plugging away too and find those reasons to stick with it.
 
im SO sorry to be reading this.... especially it being your first breeding with her too... Poor thing...

Dont take it out on yourself though, youve been a good snake mom! I send you my condolences hon...

Just dont stop going.

All the luck in the world to you for next time! - Alicia
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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