# Boas > General Boas >  can you feed boas chickens?

## crystal

i have an argentine, a redtail and a dumerils. for some reason the live food store around here is running real low on soft and fuzzy things my boas eat. however they do have an abundance of baby chicks that are of relative size to the fuzzy things. a while back we fed the argentine a large baby chicken and he had some trouble (the wings were a little complicated for him at first) but he did eat it and killed it just fine. the redtail refused it last saturday and so did the dumerils. in fact neither wanted to eat anything. (they get moody) and they wont eat p/k or f/t, ive tried.

now because im having difficulty getting rats while i wait for my ASF colony to grow would it be ok to switch the boas over to chicks for a while?

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## Thor26

my uncle some 20 years ago fed his boa which was around 9 feet chickens and she lived to be 23  so i assume its fine becareful though full grown chickens can fight back if the strike isnt perfect =]

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## Chandler reptiles

I am sure it is fine but I would worry more about imprinting them with just chickens to the point you have to feed them those forever, I have a dumeril that I have finally switched over to guinea pigs because they had her on chickens as a baby.  She did fine until she hit 3 foot and I couldn't find anywhere locally to get chickens big enough to satisfy her appetite.

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## McAdry

As to should you feed them chickens or not think it would matter on the size of the chicken really your snakes can eat most any animal it can kill and swallow. Did I see you post that you were waiting on an asf colony to get going I might reconsider that with the type of snakes you are rasing they are going to rapidly become way to small to make a viable meal for most boa's. We have used rat's and rabbits for our redtails depending on the size of the snake and the size of the prey and it seems to work out fine as a rabbit from a meat breeder or feeder supplier is usually a better deal then a few jumbo rats as the snakes get bigger.

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## crystal

im putting together the asf colony for my balls. and i was feeding my boas adult asf's because i can either get gigantic rats or really small mice, no in between right now. both the dumerils and my redtail are small right night now, once they get larger, im going to start breeding guineas or rabbits i think. for some reason though this past month it has been really difficult to get medium / large rats.

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## frankykeno

If you're having problems getting a regular supply of the prey size you need you might want to consider switching them over to f/t rats.  Most boas aren't that picky and I know from raising our own rats that it's financially smarter to go with f/t jumbo rats than raise them yourself.  They take up so much space, time and resources that for us to feed our large boa jumbo rats, it just makes more sense to use f/t.

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## Kristy

If you live in Spokane pm me. I have a private rat breeder that supplies all of mine. He has tons of rats frozen for sale right now from fuzzy upto larges.

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## Kristy

Ahh just realized they won't eat f/t. He does sell live though I believe. 

At least you'd have a good supply other than a petstore until your colony grows.

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## crystal

i think im going to try switching them to f/t again. maybe if i talk to them about it first they will go for it. i dont know. we'll see.

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## Wh00h0069

> im putting together the asf colony for my balls. and i was feeding my boas adult asf's because i can either get gigantic rats or really small mice, no in between right now. both the dumerils and my redtail are small right night now, once they get larger, im going to start breeding guineas or rabbits i think. for some reason though this past month it has been really difficult to get medium / large rats.


So, your planning on feeding them live guineas or rabbits when they get older? What if the guineas or rabbits fights back and kills your snake? That is why people feed their boas f/t.

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## Daemonicus

But the boas seem to enjoy "hunting" their food and they are usually "hand fed."  It gets a little sketchy with the agrentine, but he is pretty good at getting the food instead of my hand. I also get the bigger prey a bit dizzy before giving o the snakes. (just to alleviate confusion, Crystal's snakes are also my snakes)

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