first babies this year !!!

[Gijs & Sabine]

The first babies were born yesterday, sirtalis sirtalis. There are 24 very active babies and unfortunately 4 misshaped (don't know if that's the correct word)
The mom is doing great and started to eat right away today.









and one of the misshaped ones

[adamanteus]

Congratulations! 24 beautiful babies! Is the deformed baby in the picture dead? It's a shame, but with such a high birth rate I suppose defects are inevitable. Were all 4 deformed babies similar in their deformities?

[Gijs & Sabine]

So it's called DEFORMED, thnx for that James.
The deformities were similar with all the 4 babies and, that's the hardest, they were not dead But everybody can understand that these babies didn't have any change on a good live, so I had to put them in the freezer.

[adamanteus]

Nothing else you could do. Did you read this thread?

http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/gart...ghlight=headed

I wrote about a deformed T.radix haydenii I once had (post #6). I would be interested to read of other peoples experiences with birth defective snakes which survived.

[Gijs & Sabine]

Yes, I already read it. It would be interesting indeed, but where do you make the line wether to keep them alive or not. In your case the plains didn't seem to have any problems, but I think my baby easterns did, becouse they were not able to move.

This kind of conversation is hard for me in english, becouse I can't express myself very good I hope you get my point.

[adamanteus]

I understand you very well. I think you were absolutely right in your choice to euthanize those snakes. They had no chance of survival. I wasn't trying to critisize, I would have done the same thing. I am just interested to know of other peoples experiences.

[Sid]

Beautiful little ones. I had 16 T. s. sirtalis born last 4th of July and 1 had the same deformity as your did . It was added to the freezer too. I felt it was the most humane thing.

Sid

[ssssnakeluvr]

I had a w/c red sider that had 24 babies, 3 had extremely shortened lower jaws...had to put them down, kinda hard to eat with no lower jaw.

[Cazador]

Sabine,

Congratulations! I don't think anyone would presume to second-guess the decision that another makes to euthanize an injured/malformed snake. It's a personal decision that has to be made with the best interest of each, individual snake in mind. Thanks for including all of these pictures. They're all wonderful.

Rick

[chloe]

Congratulations, beautiful babies