Pacific Boa Constrictor Snakes (Candoia bibroni bibroni)

The smallest of the batch of babies born on 31 May is, of course, the one we will keep. Born at 7gms, now a hefty 12 gms, she is pounding gecko tails once a week (offered from chopsticks). And now she has shed her skin for the first time. Here are photos of her pre-shed and feeding, and 48 hours later in her new technicolour skin, glowing and fabulous. The name Corrigan comes from Celtic folk-lore: Corrigan, according to the folklore of Brittany is a female færy "Little Queen". She is said to have been one of the ancient druidesses, and therefore malicious towards Christian priests. Corrigan is fond of pretty human children, and is usually blamed for all changeling substitutions.

Most Fijians are afraid of snakes, so it has been quite an adventure for our housekeeper to get used to the snakes living with us. However here she is with one of the new babies, looking happy to be handling it. I'm hoping she's a new ambassador for protecting Fiji's own boa constrictors!

Well, we've had a long, strange journey getting here, but finally we have our own, captive bred, baby Fiji boas! I had NO IDEA that their mother was pregnant, but Mazikeen, the large female from Kadavu island, after being unusually restless roaming around her tank for the past week, suddenly presented me with 13 babies. Of course she did this at 7.30pm at night when I was due to leave at 6.30am the next morning for 3 weeks travelling.... Fortunately baby snakes are very independent and can live for a month or more on what is left of their yolk sac, so I cleaned them up, checked them out (gloated for a while) left them in a nice clean tank with plenty of hides and water, and off I went. Now I'm back home with time to look at them closely, feed them for the first time, and take lot and LOTS of photos. The babies are about 30cm (1 foot) long and weigh around 12 grams each (less than half an ounce). Of the 13, 8 are brown and 5 are orange. However I'm not counting on this conti...

3 weeks after their birth, I attempted the babies' first feed. The last pair of babies I had died after regurgitating food. This may have been genetic (as friends with others from the same litter lost theirs in the same way) but of course I'm now paranoid that I had been giving them too large prey animals. So these babies are starting off very gently with (pre-killed, frozen and thawed out) tiny hatchling geckos, or tails of larger geckos. Here's the first one taking a tail. Last night 7 of the 13 fed quite easily, taking food gently from tongs. One tried but then refused what may have been too large a gecko, and 5 reacted to the food as though it was going to eat them. The 7 successful feeders are now in one tank, the 6 who have yet to feed are in another, and I'm starting a frantic mini-gecko hunt!

Candoia are often called "Ground Boas". Well, here's proof that the Fiji Candoia bibroni bibroni are certainly arboreal for a lot of their life. Not only did Mazikeen climb up to the top branch of her tank to (literally) drop her babies, the first thing they did on being put into their new tank an hour after birth was shoot straight up to the highest point they could find. And even though I provided them with lots of nice toilet roll hides, newspaper layers and dried ferns to burrow in, they still prefer the ridge at the very top of the container. Makes opening the tank an adventure....

Out here in the islands we don't have the luxury of buying pre-made snake enclosures, so as ever, necessity has been the mother of invention. Here are the two tank designs that seem to work out best for us (5 year old provides handy size comparison!). Main display tank: I have to confess that we inherited this from a much handier enthusiast. I think that if I'd been making it I wouldn't have made it this large, but as it turns out it's been perfect. Our six (nocturnal) snakes all sleep curled up in their hides on the floor during the day, but every night they are out and about climbing around the upper branches, and are usually all in new sleeping positions the next day. The main body is plywood, with a perspex window, and a door and side panels open to the air, screened with green garden shade cloth. As you don't want any rough edges inside the tank that the snakes can rub against, all inner surfaces are rounded off with wooden beading. The floor is sealed with he...