She’s a ‘22 from Ryan Shatto at Baja Boas and her mate is a ‘21 from the same locality stock.
I’m no expert in breeding them. I just cohabbed them for about 2 months after brumation ended, so I’m not sure when she’s due. Probably within the next month…I think. She stopped eating a couple of months ago, so I’m glad I fattened her up sufficiently. She’s about 450g and he’s about 160g. Don’t know why he’s small. I don’t remember that kind of size dimorphism with the Coastals I had in the past.
She’s beautiful!! That’s my favourite colour scheme for rosies, the dark grey base colour with those gorgeous brick red stripes. Can’t wait to see the babies, she looks about ready to burst!
It is not always fruitful to compare Bajas to Coastals, since they’re different species (L. trivirgata, L. orcutti). That said, orcutti can have noticeable sexual dimorphism, at least with some locales.
Your male seems about the right weight for his age, and looks to have a healthy build. Your female looks obese – she presents as more flabby than turgid, and the heft starts closer to her head than the babies are. If she has any tail fat at that age, that’s another indicator.
That weight at that age is a pretty good indicator that she was overfed. Breeding at three years isn’t the best idea for lifetime reproductive output or for longevity. I’m not sure fattening them up is needed, since they don’t really look all that wiped out after they give birth (and keeping weight off adult females needs all the help it can get, sometimes).
As for your breeding procedure, though, I think that’s about it. It can be hard to judge due date – the shortest I recall seeing in my rosies is a bit more than 18 weeks.
Yeah, it’s really difficult to find out info regarding proper body condition for these guys. The female was pretty big out of bru, and I fed her heavy like I would a breeding female of any species at that time, but she really packed on the weight. I’ll have to reassess after she delivers. She hasn’t eaten since the end of March when she was looking noticeably gravid in the back end.
My females often eat right up until birth, or within a couple weeks of it. I feed primarily hopper mice to all my rosies (once a week for females, every 2 or three weeks for males once they’re near adult). I have a couple big orcutti that I’ll feed weaner mice to, but I have had these through a couple breedings and I know how they’ll handle all that food over the course of the year.
