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gaboon pregnancy question
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by ianb on October 25, 2004
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I bred my gaboons 2 years ago. It was pretty easy to realize that procreation had taken place by the obvious changes in the females body weight, preferred positions and lack of appetite. In fact she only ate 1 medium rat in 6 months as opposed to 2 jumbos every 3-4 weeks. Anyway, I attempted the process again this year with no success. I always heard they often take a year or two off. So what was surprising was when 6 months later(2 weeks ago) she deficated with stools consisting of afterbirth and one premature dead fetus. How could this happen? She never showed any signs of pregnancy and one premature fetus is nothing compared to the 33 young she had the first time.
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RE: gaboon pregnancy question
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Anonymous post on November 11, 2004
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It's difficult to make a firm diagnosis to accurately describe your situation. I am assuming that there have been no breeding attempts since her last litter?
There have been many published accounts of active sperm retention in females. I suspect that this is what happened to your female. Such a story goes like this.....
Once upon a time (LOL), you bred your female to a male producing a litter of neonates. Over the years, she hasn't been reproductively active, until such time that her body decided to ovulate. During this ovulation, such ova have been passed to her oviducts for fertilization by a male. Since there wasn't a male present to fertilize the ova, she developed them and passed them anyway, as it's impossible for her to reabsorb them. This is a common mistake herpers make when they are trying to breed snakes. The female swells as she is ovulating, and this leads to a incorrect, preconcieved notion determining gravidity. Such is a terrible error. One copulation is all it takes sometimes to produce a large litter of baby snakes. Multiple copulations increase one's chances. There are those that theorize that initial copulations may stimulate follicular maturation (ovulation). Back to the question. Why the still born, and a few ova? I speculate your female was ready to reproduce, ovulated, and retained a small degree of sperm from prior breeding. This is a plausible explaination as to why you got a few slugs, 1 still born (a low number), and some poop. Hope this helps bro!
-The Phantom
PS I am thinking of changing my name from the Phantom, to "Captain Chaos" Any cannonballers here? What are your thoughts on this?
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