The long strange road bit - skip for more pics
So for those who saw my earlier struggles, here is the long strange bit. For those who would like more baby pics, feel free to skip this - more pics in my next post.
Please bear in mind I do not have herp vets available to me here, and not a lot is known about breeding this particular species - some of the following includes mistakes that may be my fault as a keeper, but I've tried to provide the best care I could. This forum has been very helpful in providing advice and encouragement, and I give all these details in the hope that they will contribute to the general knowledge of Candoia snakes.
I have been rearing Fiji Boas Candoia bibroni bibroni here in Fiji for 5 years now. My first three were captive born (from a wild mother) neonates from the Fijian Island of Taveuni. Fiji Boas are small and slow growing; it was four years before the males were large enough to be interested in breeding, and the 5 year old female is still not ready.
Last year I paired the males with a (borrowed) VERY large wild-caught female from Taveuni Island. There was very active mating for three weeks, after which they were separated and I waited with baited breath. Fiji boas have a 9 month gestation period, so it was a long wait, during which I bothered this forum with a lot of "Fat girl" pics and (probably stupid) questions. She gained weight, she stopped feeding, she shed, she started feeding again, she didn't change shape
After treating her like a diva for over a year I finally had to accept that she had faked me out....
By this time her original owner had had life changes and didn't want her back, so we sent her back to her home island, where chances are she has had MILLIONS of babies and is sniggering behind my back.
ANYWAY... by this time I had acquired a pair of captive born females from the island of Kadavu, and decided to attempt to breed these. Candoia apparently appreciate "multiple males' when breeding, so I put these 2 large females in with my 5 (much smaller) males, and an orgy ensued. Pics of this are also on this forum somewhere. All seemed to be going well. One of the females was actively mating, the other was keeping apart up a tree, so obviously was not receptive.
All seemed on track. And then I went away for the weekend, and came back to find the actively mating female dead in the tank. I thought maybe strangled in the melee, I was very upset. I did an autopsy and she had about 25 largish eggs inside, which looked unfertilised, so there is a possibility that there was some problem I didn't know about - I wasn't sure if she would mate if already pregnant. Anyway I realised I did not know enough about this stuff, removed the other female from the tank and swore off breeding attempts.
THEN - I was offered a pair of beautiful dark orange neonates also captive born from a wild-caught mother, and very happily spread photos of these all over this site and my blog. They seemed to be doing well, feeding regularly, I had them for about 3 months. Then one regurgitated a meal and died. A month later the other one did the same thing. Once more I was very upset - I thought maybe I'd been offering meals that were too large, but they had been feeding easily until that time. Then my friends who had 6 babies from the same batch told me the same thing had happened to all 6 of theirs, so we think may be there had been some kind of genetic defect.
I don't know, but the shine was certainly off the hobby for me for a while, and I decided to simply stick to the 7 I had, which were all healthy and doing well.
AND THEN.... at 7.30pm on the evening before I was due to leave home for 3 weeks travelling, I came into the house, glanced into the snake tank, and saw two tiny faces looking out at me. After a "but the babies both died" double take, I realised that the second large Kadavu female (the one who apparently had NOT been mating) had suddenly produced 13 babies and 2 slugs!
She had been a bit restless the week before, but I had no idea she was pregnant (Candoia babies are very small and gravid females, as I NOW know, do not swell up hugely like many other boa species).
So, here I am, unprepared, with 13 babies to feed and house and find homes for. I'm beginning to think that Candoia are practical jokers....
