Is this female Basin big enough to breed???????
I just acquired this 7 yo virgin female Basin. just wondering if any of you have bred females this small. my 7 yo male is certainly bigger than her.... thanks, norm

IMO she is for sure too small. She seems larger than your petite, lady like hands..... ;) Ed has a rule of thumb that to me seems a good standard - when perched is the size of a large Cantelope. Loved that shot of Nikita from a week or so ago. Show more!

I would guess the definitive answer to this question isn't out there. It has been generally accepted through similar questions that a female should be around 4 years and 1500gram. Tree Boa ( Brazil) has reported a WC female basin at 1000 gram gave birth to 15 healthy. I would guess that specimen in the first post to be around 900 g. In my opinion, and its not an expert one, i do think perhaps sometimes some keepers exercise a regime of overcaution when raising juveniles of this species in regards to size of meals offered and/ or frequency of feeding. I think there are a lot of adult age animals captive raised that have had their potential adult attainable size " stunted " .I'm not suggesting this specimen is stunted. However i'm sure there are female emeralds out there that may never reach that suggested optimum weight even beyond the age of this animal. After all, the growth of all snakes dramatically decreases after the first few years. I think it's too difficult to answer. Some animals are genetically programmed for size ( if not stunted deliberately) Some will stay small even if fed adequately. Who will say what female is suitable for breeding if they have no idea of the potential of the animal in question. It may never reach 1500 g. Does that mean it will never be mature? We still dont know enough. .

she looks healthy and is old enough to breed, her being smaller may result in less babies. I personally don't undestand the why everyone stresses about weight, for chondro's people also use the 1000gram rule, but I once spoke to D. Wilson who studies chondro's in the wild and he said " I once caught this massive chondro she was 1000grams, an absolute monster!" most females he found were 700-800grams and males even smaller. now offcourse emeralds are bigger by nature but why would we think a midget emmy can't breed succesfully ? Jurgen.

Jurgen, People stress about weight because reptiles do mature acording to their size, despite of age. This boa is "old", but is quite possibly still not mature and infertile. A 10 year old can be infertile if it is still not big enough. This same snake can be fed more and grow and be fertile at 11. There are cases like this described in the literature. Another point that I believe to be relevant breeding wise, is that a female bred to early will grow less, thus being less productive during its life. Since their growing mechanism is different than a mammal's, I don't know if they can recover this growth that was lost. The guys who have been breeding them for years might be able to shed some light on this subject.

so lets see, Jurgen calls my Basin a midget and Matt calls my hands petit and ladylike. anyone else want to heap on the insults???? :wink: :lol: Ed, Steve, Kyle???? will she produce for me this coming season???

Norm: What is her current weight? When Ellen was imported by Kamuran of Bushmasters, we assumed she was a male due to her size (1,000g) and thought she was an older snake due to the size of her head. After extensive lab work which came up clear, I put her in quarantine for a year and eventually got her up to 1,600g.

Steve, I dont have a weight on her. But my glove size is large so just eyeballing her what do you think? furthermore<Steve, which woman do you think is more fertile? my old girlfriend on the left or Matt's old girlfriend on the right??? Norm.

Norm, I'm quessing she needs another year maybe two and Matt needs to stay off the fat girls. :)

What can I say? She's got a great personality.

I think if she is fed regularly she will keep growing . I would give her a year or so and see if she grows substantially with your own feeding regimen. If she does, maybe wait til she is 1500 gms or so. If she doesn't seem to be packing on the weight, but eating well , I might try and give her a go. My thinking is , if she is old (large) enough to coneive , she is probably ready to breed.

thanks guys. I need this to take my mind off the spill. the oil has hit our beaches. BP and our useless government (thanks for nothing Obama) have done nothing. their attitude was "wait till it hits the beaches then we will start to clean up"...if you want to know what is really happening watch Anderson Cooper. Our beaches will be ruined. our fishery will be ruined. our way of life is being ruined. at least I have my collection to enjoy. (and the government even wants to take that away from us also!) our beaches one week ago

Norm , sorry to hear about your beaches. It has got to be horrifying . The whole situation has been dealt with badly.

Norm: I estimate your girl at 800 to 900g. You need to invest in a digital scale, buddy. Try rightonscales.com. I'm really sorry about your beaches. Maybe $20B will be a good start to get things cleaned up.