Undersized Dumeril's Boa?

I love Dumeril's Boas and have been looking out for any females in the area for months (I even reached out to someone about one earlier this year and they had sold her literally the day before), and one has popped up but I have some reservations in that she seems undersized based on the info from her current owner.

She was described as "breeding size" but seemed small in her picture and was being kept in a 36" cage, so I asked for more info knowing that they are slow growers. Her owner said she's probably 5.5 years old and weighs 1700g (3.75lb), which seems about half the weight I'd expect a female of her age to be? If all of that is true, she seems stunted and I doubt she would get to the size I'd want my boa to be. Based on that, I'm leaning towards not getting her even though it's really disappointing to miss another opportunity at a Dumeril's. She's also a decent drive away and I don't really want to go that far just to examine her in person if I'm not committing.

But I have zero experience with boas and I'm really bad at estimating weights, so I'm not 100% confident in my assessment. I just know that my BP clocks in at 1300 grams and I've looked through other people's progression threads (ok, mostly the thread for redshepherd's Vigil because it has some good reference data) as a comparison, so I'd appreciate a second opinion from anyone with more experience.

Are they sure it's a female? My male is almost four and about the same weight.

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Originally Posted by GoingPostal

Are they sure it's a female? My male is almost four and about the same weight.

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They certainly think so, as it looks like they were raising up a male to breed “her” with before they decided to downsize. That’s a good point though... actually being a male would definitely explain the size.

Morphmarket has baby dumerils available.

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Originally Posted by sur3fir3

Morphmarket has baby dumerils available.

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Unfortunately shipping isn't really a convenient/reliable option for me right now, so I only window shop on MorphMarket! Hence why I've just been checking local sales and expos.

Dumerils are easy to sex as only males have spurs so ask for a pic of the vent. It shouldn't be hard to mix up but I've taken in several "female" ferrets that were actually male and that's even more obvious. Never hurts to double check! If it's truly a female, what is the feeding schedule? Perhaps they've never moved up in prey size.

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Originally Posted by GoingPostal

Dumerils are easy to sex as only males have spurs so ask for a pic of the vent. It shouldn't be hard to mix up but I've taken in several "female" ferrets that were actually male and that's even more obvious. Never hurts to double check! If it's truly a female, what is the feeding schedule? Perhaps they've never moved up in prey size.

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I asked for better pictures already and didn't get any, so I think I'm going to call it a bust and keep looking. Maybe third time will be the charm? That info about the spurs is super helpful though, I'm definitely storing that away for next time!

I'm not an expert. I have both sexes of Dumerils boas. Unrelated . Approximately the same age(5yr).Male has small dark spurs and female shows nothing. Both are 5 feet with the female having greater girth. Both fed 175- 200 gram f/t rat every 30 days or so. Equally handle both. Female is sweet as a corn snake, male is more like a Ball python. Hope that's useful

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Adult Dumerils average 5.5 to 6 feet in size, although there are exceptionscto every rule. Males are also on average bigger than females. I have been breeding Dumerils for nearly 10 years, but I reside in South Africa, so I can't help you. I post a pic of my female having a huge ovulation a week ago. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...8b157a66a0.jpg

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