Boas vs Balls

Feed an appropriate sized prey item once per week. Boas love to eat and I have never had any of mine refuse a meal. Good luck with her!

you can feed an appropriate sized rodent weekly. but your bci female will reach 8-10 ft. if you feed every other week it will not grow to be so ginormious, with no ill effects. i have read this first hand out of the Boaconstrictor mannual. from the herp society. it all depends on what you want a pet or an animal to breed. as a pet you may not want a snake that is 9-10 ft and weaighs about 30lbs. but if you only want a mannagable pet that is between 5-7 ft 10-15 lbs i would only feed every other week. (like i said earlyer it will not hurt the snake at all) and will proabbly make your snake live longer. it has been proven a snake that is thinner will have a much less of a chance of organ failure.

matt

I feed my baby male born 4-12-06 about every 7 days now and my 2 year old female thats 5' about every 2 weeks now. Neither are obese at all. I don't really do a schedule myslelf. I just wait till they look like they are back to normal and becoming increasingly active by looking for food. They seem to do well with that

It's the "actively seeking food" bit that alarms me - they might mistake me for food LMAO!! I don't want a really enormous snake though that is unhealthy, so I'll feed less often than once a week. Should I apply this to my BP as well now she's a year old? Neither of these snakes are fully grown yet that was why I was wondering if I should wait.

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Originally Posted by Razaiel

It's the "actively seeking food" bit that alarms me - they might mistake me for food LMAO!! I don't want a really enormous snake though that is unhealthy, so I'll feed less often than once a week. Should I apply this to my BP as well now she's a year old? Neither of these snakes are fully grown yet that was why I was wondering if I should wait.

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Actively seeking food is just my way of saying they are out and about in their cages more often. If you don't smell like food, and follow their body lanuguage(hisses, not willing coming out of their cage) then you shouldn't have any problems. I wouldn't even be worried, just leave him/her along with no handling for 2 weeks like everyone said and the rest will usually just fall into play. BTW, I've yet to see a boa besides when in shed that won't come out to exercise when you let them. Very fun and any fears you have about them will soon be relieved as soon as you hold him and see the tameness and personality they have.


Good luck

I would continue feeding an appropriate prey item once per week for both the ball and boa. That is in NO way powerfeeding.

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Originally Posted by jglass38

I would continue feeding an appropriate prey item once per week for both the ball and boa. That is in NO way powerfeeding.

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Agreed. Boas are hard to over feed but I would consider more than 1 time a week for a juvi boa over feeding. My girl Ruby was eating XL rats everyweek for a while and she was getting obese. I could tell. Just stick to 1 time a week until you get on lets say medium rats go to around every 10 days. Then for large on up I would do around every 14 days depending on the body condition. Bunnies can vary but thats a long ways away so lets not get into that.

PS Sue, I got banned from rtb.net

I got her home yesterday - long trip - 3 hours there and 2 1/2 back. The snake is absolutely adorable - when the breeder said originally to a question I had about how big she was and came back with the reply he had over 200 snakes and couldn't be completley sure - he meant including all the babies - so as he'd had her for a year she seems to have been handled regularly and is totally happy with it. She's tucked safe in her viv now - she's got a hide one end and a load of foliage the other to hide in and a big branch thingy in the middle. I thought (being used to BPs) she would just scoot for the nearest hide and I wouldn't see her for days - but she wasn't at all interested in hiding from us. She was zipping all round the viv, up the ceramic guard and the branches and finally settled in front of the vivarium for a bit before waking up and exploring some more.

This breeder also believes in not feeding too much - he mentioned the same as you did, Fish, about feeding till they're obese and it leading to shorter lives and organ failure plus, in males, a disinclination toward breeding. I shall get her settled in though and feeding once a week starting the weekend though she's such a calm snake I almost feel she's settled in already - but don't worry - I shall continue sitting on my hands :D

Jake - You got banned???? I didn't realize that but haven't been there much lately. Well, I got a warning for something that seemed totally over the top to me - I used a blasphemous word (not even swear word!) it would mean nothing in the UK. I couldn't believe it then up came the little red warning signs ... I also got ridiculed for saying a Ball Python should be kept at a hotter temp than the low to mid 80s - ah well ...

Edit: She has a name now - It's Sakura ... Japanese for cherry-blossom

Congrats Sue! BCI's are so different than BP's we're finding with our very limited experience. Severus came out of his shipping like he rides around in a box every other day LOL. We're still giving him his quiet week but he peeks out or comes out to watch me regularily (he's doing his quarantine time in the room the computer is in).

That's a lovely name you picked for her...very unique and pretty. Oh and we will feed Severus every week just like the BP's until he's a fully mature male then go to every other week like we've done with Rauri. Hopefully that's the correct feeding schedule as that's pretty much what we were told to do when we took the big fella in.

Thanks, Jo - good that Severus is settling in well too :) They look so adorable when they come up to the front of the glass to look at us. When my little girl was out and about last night I didn't see her very well when I first looked in (I was expecting her to be in her half log still) so I was peering inside the viv and suddenly there was this little face coming towards me to stare and flick her tongue - I'm in love already :love: I can't wait for her 2 weeks to pass.