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An admonishing example ...
Those who think it is a good idea to put a living rat in the boa enclosure during the night should take a look at these photos...
Anita Preisser, working as a specialized saleswoman in a pet shop has put these photos to our
disposal. The owner of the boa is a young lady who asked her for help.
This pic shows the numerous spots on which the boa has been gnawed by the rat.
It is prominently how deep the wounds are reaching.
As cases of serious burns are showing as well, boids seem to be only little sensitive for pain on the surface of their body.
When they are not hungry, boas with a calm disposition are ignoring the prey items in spite of their intrusive behaviour. In such cases the hunter becomes the prey...
It is doubtful whether the boa will survive. The danger of a serious infection and the prolonged recovery from such large wounds give a bad prognosis.
Therefore:
Never put a living prey item in the enclosure with the boa without permanent supervision!
Albino boa X het for albino = 50% albinos + 50% hets?
According to Mendel’s Square a successful breeding of a female amelanistic Boa constrictor ("Albino Boa") to a male who is heterozygous for amelanism is supposed to yield 50% amelanistic ("Albino") boas and 50% boas heterozygos ("hets") for amelanism.
However, it looks like Mendel’s Square is cancelled by the "albinogene"!
Here are two drastic experiences from two different breeders. In each case a "het" male was mated to an "albino" female.
offspring 2004: 26 normal colored (heterozygous) babies, 1 albinobaby (stillborn), 3 infertile eggs
offspring 2007: 18 normal colored (heterozygous) babies, 0 albinobabies
We concede that these two examples are the most aggravating cases, but ALL of the breeding results that we know of are below par, considering Mendel’s Square. How come?
Dr. Wolfgang Heuberger, veterinarian for reptile diseases:
In "Albino Boas" developement disorders of the babies occur, frequently leading to the death of the progeny, because the "albino-gene" is often coupled to other mutations who have a harmful impact to the embryos. Therefore in previous literature the term "lethalgene" was applied. The number of stillborn babies, infertile eggs and crippled babies is above average when the albino-gene is involved.
Furthermore, in our experience Albino embryos often stall at an early point in time and are completely absorbed by healthy females. Thus it doesn't necessarily happen that the female gives birth to dead babies or delivers infertile eggs.
It remains to be seen whether similar problems will occur in other color morphs and designer boas (or designer ballpythons). Understandably, such breeding results aren't shouted from the rooftops by the Albino Boa breeders (in their own interest) and therefore such information is distributed only sparsely.
We have also posted this report in the kingsnake.com boa forum, one of the most wellknown forums for boas (mainly sponsored by morph breeders).
Although it was written matter of factly, this report was deleted within a few hours by the admin of this forum. We tried to post it again, same result!
This shows how scared the morph breeders are that the information provided in this report might be distributed.