SI boa holding breath underwater?

Thought I would make a separate thread for this question about my solomon island boa...

She spends a lot of time, especially the evenings, in her water dish. I sometimes see her drinking, and other times her head is just dunked in the water, for what appear to be decently long periods of time (several minutes).

Does anyone know how long a small snake (22") should be able to hold its breath underwater and if it's not good that she seems to forget to pick her head up out of the water? I just get worried sometimes when she lays there for so long. And I'm not sure how smart she is :rolleyes:

long time, well longer than I'd like them to. My rainbows and my vipers all sit underwater for extended periods. My trees only soak every so often, but they'll surprise you with their lung capacity. I'll go with a guess of 20 minutes, and that's fairly conservative I'd say, rainbow boas have been timed at staying under about 40 minutes in captivity.

She doesn't need to be smart, her instincts won't allow her to kill herself unless she's totally whacked out, or has no energy, but it's usually nothing to worry about.

Thanks for the reassurance... I had no idea some snakes could hold their breath for so long!

I wish I could hold my breath that long, That would be uber....

My bp does the same thing. I haven't ever had a snake before, he's my first, and he spends almost ALL his time in the water, sometimes completely submerged. I just want to make sure he's not stressed and trying to kill himself or something...:confused: He seems to really enjoy being in the water though

i would check for mites if your bp is constantly soaking

I have recently, actually. I couldn't see anything around his eyes or on his body. He looked pretty normal from what I could tell. Are mites pretty noticeable?

Hi,

Did you check in the waterbowl for little black dots when you cleaned it? Also check in the heatpits and the little fold under his chin. :gj:


dr del

It mite have mites (sorry, I had to do that) or be in the shedding process. I sort of see that with Charon (my hissing Hogger) except he holds his breath under the sand (crushed English walnut shells actually) instead of the water dish. He seems to stay under there for hours (maybe he takes a breath every once in a while when I'm not looking). I can tell he's holding his breath because when I pick him up from under the sand he doesn't hiss at me until he has reached the surface, and he needs to breathe to hiss, right?

P.S. Charon is less than half the size of your boa, as you can see in my sig.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kojack8389

My bp does the same thing. I haven't ever had a snake before, he's my first, and he spends almost ALL his time in the water, sometimes completely submerged. I just want to make sure he's not stressed and trying to kill himself or something...:confused: He seems to really enjoy being in the water though

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You do realize you replied to a thread from July of last year. :)

Craig