Snakesitter
New member
Living Gems Reptiles is pleased to announce that on Wednesday, September 14, one of our senior females “Alexandrite” dropped her litter. This is our second and final litter of the year, and in marked contrast to the first litter, was all that we could hope for.
The babies arrived a few days earlier than anticipated. I thought Alex was due Sunday, but she dropped four days before that, depositing her litter around 10:30AM Wednesday morning. Coincidentally, this was the only day all year I’d happened to come home for an appointment, and I happened to glance in Alex’s viv as I was getting ready. I noticed a suspiciously thin Alex out of her viv, and spotted the first baby right after. From that and the mess in her hide, it was pretty clear she had only just deposited the squirming mass.
I had no time to process them, but did manage to try a quick count -- over ten -- and snap a few pictures before time ran out. The following images are a mixture of those images, the few pictures I took after the appointment but before returning to work, and the many, many images I snapped later that evening as I was processing the litter.
Parents
This is the mother of the litter, Alexandrite:
This is the sire of the litter, Hills:
Unfortunately, due his recent passing, this will be the only litter he can ever pass his amazing color on to.
Overview
These three images are an overview of Mom’s viv. They show the whole box and each half in more detail. They were taken just before I had to go back to work, so show the whole litter about 90 minutes post delivery out cruising with Mom -- each and every one of them searching for that magic hole out of the viv.
Whole
Left
Right
Maternal Confusion
Alex, while polite, seemed a little skeptical of all the attention towards her babies. She kept dividing her time between checking *them* out (“where did these come from?!”) and checking *me* out:
Do I look at Them…
…Or Him?
That evening, while processing the babies, she made an amusingly determined effort to escape her viv herself, as if six hours alone with a litter of hyperactive babies was more than any sane boa could take:
Babies
And, finally, the babies themselves. This was the dispersing pile shortly after I first discovered them and took the first set of photos:
Slime Pile
“The Door’s Around Here Somewhere!”
Ah-ha!
Following are some image of individual babies, both as they were discovered and as they were later processed.
[snip have to continue below due to forum rules!]
The babies arrived a few days earlier than anticipated. I thought Alex was due Sunday, but she dropped four days before that, depositing her litter around 10:30AM Wednesday morning. Coincidentally, this was the only day all year I’d happened to come home for an appointment, and I happened to glance in Alex’s viv as I was getting ready. I noticed a suspiciously thin Alex out of her viv, and spotted the first baby right after. From that and the mess in her hide, it was pretty clear she had only just deposited the squirming mass.
I had no time to process them, but did manage to try a quick count -- over ten -- and snap a few pictures before time ran out. The following images are a mixture of those images, the few pictures I took after the appointment but before returning to work, and the many, many images I snapped later that evening as I was processing the litter.
Parents
This is the mother of the litter, Alexandrite:
This is the sire of the litter, Hills:
Unfortunately, due his recent passing, this will be the only litter he can ever pass his amazing color on to.
Overview
These three images are an overview of Mom’s viv. They show the whole box and each half in more detail. They were taken just before I had to go back to work, so show the whole litter about 90 minutes post delivery out cruising with Mom -- each and every one of them searching for that magic hole out of the viv.
Whole
Left
Right
Maternal Confusion
Alex, while polite, seemed a little skeptical of all the attention towards her babies. She kept dividing her time between checking *them* out (“where did these come from?!”) and checking *me* out:
Do I look at Them…
…Or Him?
That evening, while processing the babies, she made an amusingly determined effort to escape her viv herself, as if six hours alone with a litter of hyperactive babies was more than any sane boa could take:
Babies
And, finally, the babies themselves. This was the dispersing pile shortly after I first discovered them and took the first set of photos:
Slime Pile
“The Door’s Around Here Somewhere!”
Ah-ha!
Following are some image of individual babies, both as they were discovered and as they were later processed.
[snip have to continue below due to forum rules!]
