ball vs boa

Personally, I like boas better than balls. They are much more active, and are more fun to handle. Boas are also better eaters and will take frozen / thawed rodents, while many ball pythons are picky eaters and will only eat live rodents. If you are worried about size, male boas stay much smaller than females. There are also dwarf locality boas out there that stay fairly small. Some grow no longer than five feet.

Hope this helps.

I wouldnt reccomend a ball python as a first snake. Yes they are nice looking, easy to handle and such. BUT, they are known to go off their food for long periods and can be worrying for first time keepers of snakes.
Bos on the other hand rarely go off their food and can be got it many dwarf forms, hogg island, sonoran dwartf, and a male colombian boa wil rarely get much bigger than 5 - 6 foot.

Or if you want a small boa, you could always go with a Kenyan Sand Boa. :D

Thank you all so much for the great information. I know this will be helpful when it comes time for us to get our snake. And yes, we will look for local breaders before looking to a pet store. :salute:

Yeah I would do some research and decide which snake is best for you. Me personally I like the Balls better, but that is just my opinion. Also one you might check out is the rainbow boas. Brazilians, and Columbians. While the Brazilians are much more colorful, I used to have a Columbian and he was a great pet...:gj:

Ball pythons are very easy to care for, if you've done enough research. Boas tend to get a little long, like 10 ft at the max. Ball pythons stay generally small, around 6 feet at the max. Ball pythons will rarely ever get to the 6 foot mark, but some have been recorded to get a little over 6 feet. You will probably need to feed an adult Ball python large rats, as a boa would need to eat even larger meals. Plus, BPs come in so many morphs it's unbelievable. I would say get the Ball python. As far as their temperament, they are one of the nicest snakes I've ever had in my collection. They are very sweet snakes, and as well as calm too :]. :snake:

Ball pythons are boring.
They just stay there coiled up when you take them out. They can't climb or grip on to you. They are fat and clumsy. They are more prone to not eating do to their heat pits.


Boas are slimmer, cooler, more active get a bit bigger.
More beautiful colors. More fun.

Get a boa constrictor

a male BCI gets around 7 ft in a couple years.
Which by then youd want more snakes(Bigger snakes), lol.

Boas have many morphs as well.

Don't let these people fool you.

I keep and breed both ball pythons and boas so I do know the pros and cons of both worlds. For ball pythons the pros have been stated just like the cons have been so no need to really go there. For boas the pros are most of the time they do not go off of food and they have imo better base coloration for a normal. The cons are that I have had more boas attempt to bite me than any other species, they require much larger food, when you breed them you have a lot more babies to find homes for, and the market in boas gets driven down much faster than anything else. They are both great snakes don't get me wrong but do not go out and say that this snake is better than that snake because no one snake is better than any others. All snakes take time and knowledge to have good experiences with them without both of those key points then any snake is a bad snake.

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Originally Posted by tattlife2001

All snakes take time and knowledge to have good experiences with them without both of those key points then any snake is a bad snake.

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Excellent point! It's sooo tempting to see a beautiful snake and want to get it right then and there! If you buy on impulse, don't do your research first, don't already have your supplies and everything you will need to take care of the animal, bad things can happen. Take your time - they're not going extinct.

lol another one of these.

Again I ask why your asking people on a BP fan site. to compare a bp to something else? You are going to get VERY biased answers :)