Weight shift toward tail- how iminent is birth?

[Selkielass]

Trax has been looking heavy in the middle since she came out if brumation at the beginning of february.
today I note a weight shift toward her tail.
Is this a sign of approaching scrubs, or just shifting for further growth and develomwmt.(or maybe a really big poop... but she pooped big yesterday.)

I want to move her to a maternity tank before she gives birth, but she isn't going to be happy to leave her naturalistic habitat.

[guidofatherof5]

She'll understand.

[Selkielass]

Oh but the looks she and Cranky will give me!!!!
Especially Cranky. He's got major 'tude, and having his buddy missing will just make it worse.

Think I need to get the tank ready tonight, or have I got a few days or weeks?
She'd have to have been pregnant going into brumation to bear this early, but I have read that butlers are one of the species that may be capable of doing so.

[thamneil]

What makes her current enclosure unsuitable for her to give birth in?

[Selkielass]

Its a bioactive, naturalistic zoo-med cube terrarium full of wood, plants and substrate, and t. Butlerii babies are very, very small. ((Loosly coiled can sit on a penny, a d probably only weigh a gram or two.)
They'd disappear into the habitat, and probably wiggle right out the tiny gap around the front door.

[Selkielass]

These babies are a couple weeks or a month old as I recall. They grow fast.
http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//500/medium/dcp_1684.jpg

One wiggled out the tiny slot at the corner of a metal lid that was tight, but apparently not gap proof.

[ConcinusMan]

She'd have to have been pregnant going into brumation to bear this early, but I have read that butlers are one of the species that may be capable of doing so.

Northwestern's (extremely close relative of butler's) also sometimes come out of brumation nearly full term gravid. Stillborn ratio is usually high though. From time to time I have found concinnus' emerging like that but they usually drop dead babies. If it was a rather easy/short/mild brumation garters certainly can carry a viable brood through the winter.

"naturalistic zoo-med cube terrarium" Those just suck for small snakes IMO. Even good size juvies tend to squeeze through that damn gap and trying to create a wide temperature gradient in a cube is the pits.

about the downward shift... I've had it take just hours, or 5-6 days after that for the babies to come but the shift and restlessness tells you it will be very, very soon. If it's taking days it might be slugs/stills though. The downward shift is the eggs detaching from mom's blood supply and moving down. If they stay inside too long after that, many if not all usually end up suffocating. Let us know what happens.

[Selkielass]

It was a gentle 5-6 week refrigeration.
No restlessness, and she is still eating like a pig and begging to come out and get fed.
Im separating her into the maternity tank this weekend anyway. The cube is going to be the boys cage for the rest of the summer.