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We knew that 2007 would be a slow year at BoaMorph,
and what little production we got has been a slug fest. Combinations of young males and first-time females in a
very limited number of breedings was largely unproductive as expected, but did produce two litters of.....mostly slugs.
We had hoped for more, but weren't expecting much and that's exactly what we got. However, we did manage to produce
our first ever Sharp-strain morphs - a very small handful of them! The litters are described below in order of their
arrival.
♂Motley 50% Het Albino X ♀Het
Albino, Possible Coral
This male was of
borderline size for breeding at the start of the season, and though he worked her hard, it appears that he didn't get the
job done very well. We thought it was worth taking a shot putting him on Big Mama in hopes of producing a big litter
that could include albino motleys, and possibly even some corals. Alas, the size mismatch may have been more than this
little boy could handle.
Big Mama gave us
no post-ovulation shed. We estimated her due date at April 20 to 27 based on her ovulation date. She didn't really
put on the size that would indicate a good litter, and a late mid-term shed further lowered our expectations. On April
13, 2007 she dropped 24 slugs and 6 babies that looked to be about a week premature. Of the 6, 4 were d.o.a., and the
other 2 didn't live out the day. The babies did include two albinos, which makes it tempting to conclude that the male
motley 50% het albino proved out het albino, except that none of the 6 babies were motleys. The odds of getting zero
motleys out of six are 1 in 64, so it's not crazy bad odds, but there are other possibilities as well - we will hold judgment
on this male's het albino status until we get a better litter from him and thus some better evidence to go on.
♂Triple-Het Sharp Snowglow X ♀Double-Het
Sharp Snow
Both first time
breeders, this pairing was our hope for producing some of the first Sharp-strain snow boas, and perhaps even the first snowglow. This
girl was doing all the things that gravid boas do, but she wasn't bulking up in the lower third of her body the way we like
to see. We thought she would slug out for sure, and held only the slimmest of hopes for perhaps a few babies.
As such, we actually felt very fortunate when at 97 days P.O.S. on May 1, 2007 she dropped 4 live babies and .... 31
slugs - a surprising number of ova for a relatively small, first-time girl. These 4 babies are actually very exciting
for us because they happened to prove out both of the recessive traits in the parents. The phenotypes (with genotypes
in parentheses) were:
1 Sharp albino (Sharp albino 66% het anery, a.k.a. Sharp albino 66% het snow)
1 Ghost (ghost 66% het Sharp albino, a.k.a. ghost 66% het snowglow)
1 Anery (anery 66% het Sharp albino, a.k.a. anery 66% het Sharp snow)
1 Normal (66% het Sharp albino 66% het anery)
We're hoping for bigger and better things from this girl and her sister next year!
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