Couple of Heating & Feeding Questions

[spartybassoon]

I have been trying to figure out the best way to heat my enclosure (I don't have the boa yet), and I have decided on belly heat via heat tape. For those of you who use heat tape, are you using two different strips, one for the hot side and one for cold? Or are you just using one large one that will keep it hot and letting the other side just be naturally cooler? I hope that makes sense...

Secondly, I understand the problem with overfeeding and having unhealthy snakes. My question is for the people who really slow grow their animals - do you have any other reasons to slow grow other than to keep it from getting overweight? Slow growing seems to be quite popular and I want to make sure that I know all the reasons why.

[Wh00h0069]

There are a few ways to heat your boas' enclosures. In a cool room, a radiant heat panel is the best option, IMO. In a warm room, above 75 F, heat tape is a better option. You would tape the heat tape to the bottom of the cage one side, using foil tape. The tape should only be taped to 1/3 the length of the cage. I use 12" heat tape for my cages. The tape must be hooked up to a thermostat. I suggest a digital thermostat, such as a Helix, Herpstat, Johnson Controls, or a Ranco. You should also purchase a temperature gun to measure the hot spot to ensure that it does not get above 92 F.

An overfed boa may have many issues. The worst is death. Jeff Ronne from The Boaphile said in one of his videos that early in his career he had some deaths due to overfeeding some of his boas. Another issue is them not breeding due to being overweight and unhealthy. Boas do not metabolize their food as fast as some other snakes, so need to be feed less often. They also eat larger meals than some other snakes, which will take longer to digest. A good feeding regimen for common BCIs is once every week until they are approximately 1 to 1.5 years old, then once every two weeks until they are around 2.5 to 3 years old, then once every three weeks. By this time, they will likely be on extra large rats. Eventually you may even be able to feed them a rabbit once every four weeks, if you prefer.

I hope this helps.

[spartybassoon]

Thanks, that helps. Having never used heat tape before, it is hard to imagine in my head how it works, but this helps.

As for the overfeeding, I guess my question could be focused a little more. I plan on slow growing/feeding conservatively, but I've met some individuals who only feed their juveniles once every three weeks. I just have to wonder if there is something else going on besides not wanting a fat snake.

[AndrewGeibel]

I feed my male once every two weeks and my females once a week. The meals never leave a noticeable bump though. I'd feed at least once every two weeks though because three weeks seems a little long to me. I do tend feed smaller meals and grow my boas up slowly and it seems to be working out well.

EDIT: I use flexwatt connected to a herpstat pro and keep my room heated to 75F on a Ranco with a space heater.

[spartybassoon]

I think that I read that slow growing the animals will lead to the not getting as large. Is this true, on average? I want to care properly for my snake but would prefer that it gets larger than 7'.

[Danounet]

I think it has a lot to do with the age of the boa also. It seems baby boas up to 1+ year are fed once every 7 days. Then most people seem to slow down all the way to once every 14 days. From what I've read, Boas have a much slower metabolism than pythons, so they dont require as much feeding as they gain age.