My BCI

[Psycl0n_B]

This is my first boa, I bought her several months ago now. I'd always wanted a boa but wanted to gain experience with a ball python first before "graduating".

Anyway, the guy I bought her from claims she's het for hypomelanism and I'm inclined to believe that being that there were several hypos in the tank with her. So my question is, in about 3 years time (lol) what should I be doing when it comes to breeding? Should I attempt to acquire a hypo male orrrrr?

Also, sometimes I'm not 100% sure on the sex, I specifically wanted a male to begin with so I had the owner sex all the available boas there and after probing his answer was that they were all female (I gave in and bought one anyway.), is this possible, or was he just incompetent? He claimed it had to do with gestating temperatures.




JUST ATE HER FIRST FROZEN/THAWED RAT PUP LAST NIGHT!

[jason79]

Boas dont lay eggs they give birth to live young.

[Psycl0n_B]

Well I'm aware of that, I think he meant the temps while the boa was gestating. Sorry, incubating was the wrong term there.

[ScottyBoa]

First off the breeder you bought them from was either
A: Incompetent
B: Flat out lying to you

Hypo is not a recessive trait... it is dominant so anything with the trait will show up visually with the hets and supers looking the same. So look at your boa. Do you have a hypo or not? Also gestation temperatures????? Uh yeah like I said, incompetent or lying to you and them ALL being female? No, you won't know what you have until you get someone who knows how to properly probe a snake tell you what he/she is. Honestly, I'm not trying to be mean but you really should have done more research before buying a boa not to mention that any breeder who told me what he told you would have me walking out the door .000002434 seconds later and I'd make sure I told everyone I knew to stay away from the guy.

With that said, find out if you have a male or female and then go from there. I know that pics online often wash out colors and all but from the picture you posted it really looks like you have a normal. I hope you didn't pay for him/her as a morph. If you did I'd go demand my money back.

edit: Here is a hypo pic for comparison. Does yours look anything like this?

[Psycl0n_B]

No no, I only paid $50 for him as a normal, the "het" thing was just something he mentioned. These are all just questions that were floating around in my head, either way I don't feel I was ripped off, and I'm very happy with what I ended up with. I never intended to buy a morph, it was just an interesting bonus when he said it was supposedly het for hypo, I knew what that meant but I did not know enough about boa phenotypes to realize that was a dominant trait, either way it didn't raise the price.

It has a great temperament and gave me no problems switching to frozen, what else could you ask for in a normal BCI? We don't all have the money to buy our snakes from Pete Kahl, at least not at first.

[ScottyBoa]

$50 is a good price provided the animal is healthy etc... Definitely no such thing as a "het" hypo unless he means a hypo that isn't a super but like I said, you'd be able to tell just by looking. I'd get it sexed and then see what you want to do.