very tiny litter?

[decensored]

Hey guys,

I came into the snake room this morning to check on the ASFs and I noticed a pinky in one of my breeding bins that wasn't there 12 hours ago.

One of the females in the bin dropped 8 in it's last litter (2-3 weeks ago).
I haven't noticed any of the other females in that bin showing signs of gestation.
I also didn't notice any blood in the container, they are on aspen right now so t would be easy to see if they had eaten some.

I guess my question is: has anyone had any experience with ASFs dropping one baby litters?

I suppose it's possible that the mother just started the birthing process but I noticed it when I was putting food into the enclosure and all of the adults went over to the food so i don't know what to think. And if it is a 1 baby litter should i scrap the colony?

any suggestions?

cheers,
chris.

[decensored]

No more babies yet. I think it was just the one. so weird.

[Capray]

Is this her first litter? It happens sometimes in all animals, she will probably have more next time.

[John1982]

Could the others have been eaten?

[decensored]

Could the others have been eaten?

don't think so, that was my first thought. But they are on aspen and there's no sign of any carnage haha. But I figured that she would have eaten them all? I don't know why she would leave one. LOL

This is her first litter, but she showed no signs of pregnancy which made me surprised to see the pink. There is another litter in the bin, and the suspected mother is paying no attention to it, it's trying to nurse off the mother of the other litter but it's having difficulty competing for a teat lol.

It's extremely small, I've had a few litters now and this pink is about half the size of what I've come to expect. Is it possible its premature? They have been a little stressed out as I have had them on paper for the last month waiting to find a supplier for proper bedding, and needed to change the paper every couple of days. Can it take them a few days to drop all the babies?

Thanks for all your help!

[decensored]

i think you were right, i checked on them this morning when i came home from work and they were chowing down on that last pinky.. lol oh well, i guess that's normal huh? They are mostly first timers, so I can't be too surprised.

Thanks for all your comments guys.

[bivman]

I had a colony that did that on the first time around, then they were just fine. See what happens next time around..

[DooLittle]

I would give them all another chance. But if it continues, scrap them and start over.

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[punyhuman07]

How old is the female and the male in the colony. When males get to a certain age the sperm count is way lower then when you have a younger stud. Giving your females smaller litters. also if the female has been bred out she to will start to show signs with small litters. With all our females we allow them 4 litters before putting them down to keep fresh girls rotating through. They males last about a year before they get retired as well. Also this does happen where the female or females just eat the babies for many different reasons.

[Redneck_Crow]

A survival instinct of some animals is to kill and eat very small litters. This happens in animals that give birth to large numbers of offspring as a reproductive strategy, and while I haven't heard anything about this being the case with ASFs, it wouldn't surprise me. A female would be more reproductively successful, AKA raise more total offspring, if she ditched tiny litters and immediately rebred and began building up her fat stores to nurse a large littler.