Here are 2 of Talyn's Xray pics: I've included the whole X-ray from the neck to tail. Unfortunately, one part didn't come out well because she was curled up there. You can see the eggs in the middle of her body and some urates or stool just past them on the tail end. From what I can clearly see, I counted 20 eggs, but they're pretty squished together in that coiled end and I'm not sure how much may have been overlapped (or left out!)
I've also taken a close-up of the last few eggs: these measure 3cm long by 2.5 cm high. Talyn is pretty thick in the middle -- the widest ventral scale is about 7cm wide --but I'm not sure how much of her girth is taken up by the eggs.





She's back home with me now. She had no interest in the male and he stayed away from her. In fact, she bullied him away from the warm end and stayed there the whole weekend. So I went and picked her up last night.
I'm just going to treat her as if she were gravid and wait and see what happens.

Thanks for looking!

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Andrea

Cool xray Andrea!
Wouldn't it be a great surprise after all you have been thru with her to come home to a bunch of wiggling baby boas!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

With her reaction to the other male it might be that Q was male afterall and they mated and from that Talyn retained the sperm and is developing offspring! Keep us updated and good luck.. pretty cool! We're all gonna be grandparents of lots of babies this spring

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

Thanks Rachel, thanks Merlin! I'm excited for sure, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much.
I'm sure going to change vets though: can you believe she wants me to give Talyn oxytocin to abort the eggs?! It would kill me not knowing if they had been fertilized or not and killing off Q's last chance to contribute some of his wild-caught genes to the captive gene pool.
Fingers crossed!

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Andrea

I sure hope she produces some babies for you Andrea, it would be so cool!

I'm also trying not to get too excited.. Bonnie, our Hogg Island Boa, refused food for the second week in a row - she NEVER refuses food - and is gaining weight by the day, so we are 99.9% sure she is gravid,, i just hope they are fertile babies!!!


Why would your vet encourage you to administer oxytocin??! It's not like Talyn isn't old enough or big enough - she is huge! It will probably do her some good to reproduce! I can't understand your vet's suggestion.. what did she say? I would be searching for another specialist too...

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

Another point, after re-reading your post, is that oxytocin forces labour, so it should in theory make Talyn lay the eggs, which obviously haven't formed into neonates yet, which would seem a very strange thing to suggest? She would have still used calcium resources and it would be a stressful thing for her to endure.. it might also result in egg-binding, although I'm not 100% sure on this, since I can only talk from experience with egg-laying snakes.

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

Good luck Andrea and awesome pics I must say. Hopefully a congratulations to you Rach if you get some babies too ...Ok now I'm excited,,,keep us posted you two

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MARSHA

:D I'm smiling because I have no idea whats going on!

thats so cool!! keep us updated. never saw a snake x ray before except for on tv so those are neat pics.

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Professional Pet Sitting/Dog Walking
http://niksscalesandtails.com/



yes i am a she ^_^

~My Babies~

1 Rosy Boa (male) Chaos
1 Snow Corn (male) Blizzard
1 Anertherystic Corn (male) Bullet
1 Senegal Parrot (male) Shadow
2 dogs (male) Spot and Bear

wow.
*me holds up a glass of kahlua
heres hoping you get a bunch of babies.

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i'd be better off opening my own small zoo.

Thanks everyone! Fingers crossed!
Rachel: my vet has obviously never heard of snake's retaining viable sperm for any length of time. She believes the eggs are unfertilized and that they pose a serious threat of obstruction to Talyn. She recommended inducing labour with oxytocin because she is afraid Talyn is already egg-bound.
Now that I know about the eggs, I'm not worried about the obstruction... even on the Xrays, you can see waste material at the tail end, so clearly things are moving through: AND I found a small fresh stool the other day when I cleaned out the terrarium.
Talyn is more than double the size (length and girth) of my friend's best breeding Brazilian Rainbow Boa female, so I have no doubt that she is in good enough shape to handle a pregnancy. I feel that, fertilized or not, her body will know how to deal with the eggs.
It would be devastating to me to induce labour and then find that there were neonates inside the eggs.
I just told the vet something along the lines of "don't call me, I'll call you" (or not!) and took my X-rays and left.
It's all up to Talyn now. I'm going to give her the best conditions possible and try not to disturb her any more than necessary for the next 4 months.... we'll see.
I've read that she should be offered a "small prey item" every now and then, but not to expect her to take it. (Anyone have an idea what constitutes "small"?) She usually eats anything from a 170-250 gram rat. I was considering offering her one of Monty's 45g rats. Do you think that's too big?
Thanks again!

PS Rachel, good luck with Bonnie: I really hope she's gravid and we'll both be proud grandmothers showing off baby pics in spring!!

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Andrea