Should I slow down his feedings?

I have a male boa (named Sniper) who is a BCI for sure but he may be crossed with a BCC though as he came from an animal shelter so I am not 100% sure of his blood lines. He is 10 months old and 4' 10". Some people tell me this is too big for a BCI some people tell me it is normal for boas to reach 5' in their first year.

Sniper is now being fed a rats that are in between a small and medium rat. They are not quite as small as a small rat but not as big as a medium rat. I have been feeding him once a week ever since we got him. I really honestly do not want him getting past 7ft, which may be too late now as he still has 4 years of major growing to do, but I was wondering if I started feeding every 10-14 days if this would help? I do not want him to starve either. It does take him about 6 full days for him to digest the rat (the lump in his belly fully disappears). So would feeding him less harm him?

http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/a...fffa42f66d.jpg

I'm no boa expert but the snake doesn't look obese or underweight I'd say you could stretch it out to ten days if you would feel more comfortable. Just don't expect him to be happy when feeding day rolls around and you don't have a rat for him.

At his age and size he could handle a 10-14 day feeding schedule. It's healthier for a boa to be slightly underweight versus overweight.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

At his age and size he could handle a 10-14 day feeding schedule. It's healthier for a boa to be slightly underweight versus overweight.

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The other fact is that snakes have what is known as "indeterminate growth". So they continue to grow throughout their lives. Trying to control his growth rate is kind of cruel bc his meals should be controlled by his weight ( 15 - 20%). Why have a hungry, angry boa who is more likely to lash out bc he is underfed? Imo, I would weigh him and feed him accordingly. Stay in peace and not pieces. Good luck.:gj:

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

The other fact is that snakes have what is known as "indeterminate growth". So they continue to grow throughout their lives. Trying to control his growth rate is kind of cruel bc his meals should be controlled by his weight ( 15 - 20%). Why have a hungry, angry boa who is more likely to lash out bc he is underfed? Imo, I would weigh him and feed him accordingly. Stay in peace and not pieces. Good luck.:gj:

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He is too big for my kitchen scale I use and I do not have money to buy a big fancy one. I have never weighed my snakes for food, and wasn't about how much to feed him in one feeding. How many days can I go without feeding. So far it has been 9 days. He is still gentle and not angry. I planned on feeding him tomorrow. He is definitely not under weight or over weight. And boas grow through their whole lives but the first 5 years is when the do the most growing and then they gain an inch or less a year after that.

I highly doubt he is 10 months old if he is almost 5'. Or if he is 10 months old and 5', he was powerfed. My 11 month old sunglow girl is 2' and my 3 year old normal BCI girl is about 6'. If I had to guess, I would say yours is about 2 years old if he was normally fed. I would go to every 2 weeks for feeding and a medium rat seems kind of large. My 6' girl eats medium rats every 2 weeks but she is kind of overweight a little so I am backing her down to 1 medium rat every 3 weeks to 1 month. When Rosey was your boas size, she was eating small rats. With boas you don't want a huge lump that lasts days like with a python. You want a slight bulge that lasts 1 to 2 days max. like bcr229 said, boas do better if slightly underweight than overweight.

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Originally Posted by lunasjy

He is too big for my kitchen scale I use and I do not have money to buy a big fancy one. I have never weighed my snakes for food, and wasn't about how much to feed him in one feeding. How many days can I go without feeding. So far it has been 9 days. He is still gentle and not angry. I planned on feeding him tomorrow. He is definitely not under weight or over weight. And boas grow through their whole lives but the first 5 years is when the do the most growing and then they gain an inch or less a year after that.

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Most boa keepers feed their older boas every 3 weeks to 1 month. A younger boa like yours, I would feed every 2 weeks. Once he hits about 3 years old, go to every 3-4 weeks. And boas are different than BPs. You don't need to weigh their food, you want to feed them something that is as wide as them or at the most, something that leaves a slight bulge for a day or 2.

By the time my males are big enough to consistently take medium rats I bump them to 2-3 week intervals for feeding depending on their body shape. When they're over a year old and taking small rats they get fed every two weeks. Waiting to eat doesn't make them mad, and while they will certainly eat more often, they'll also eat themselves obese and cut years off of their lifespan if you offer too much food.

I will tell you that an almost five foot boa at 10 months old is definitely at the largest end of the spectrum. I slow-moderately grow my boas and at 10 months they are usually in the 3 foot range. 4'10" at this age is especially large for a male. Even if he has some BCC blood they do not exhibit larger sizes until adulthood, and even grow slower as sub-adults. Likely he was power fed as a youngster before you got him. I would just feed one appropriately sized food item every 10-14 days like stated previously. Its not cruel to push back food at his size. Feast and famine is a normal part of boa feeding in the wild, and their physiology is evolved to actually handle this situation better.

Another thing to consider is that the shelter might have been guessing at his age and completely whiffed on it. A lot of people have this idea that boas grow at unbelievable rates like retics and burms, but this is just not true. The shelter worker might have just given him an age based off of his size that was incorrect. If someone showed me a male boa that was almost 5' long I would say that unless someone was stuffing rats down his throat every four days, that the animal would be 2.5-3 years old. Just food for thought.

I have had him since he was 1' 3" long, and the SPCA I got him from said he was about 2 months old. He is the only boa I have. I have a bunch of ball pythons so I am more advanced in looking after them. My husband wanted the boa so I picked it up for him as a gift. So if he was power fed, wouldn't that be our fault? When I first got him I fed him rat pups, then went to small rats. Like I said, the rats I am feeding him now are bigger then small rats but smaller then medium rats (not really sure what you would call that size of rat). Ever since I got him I have been feeding him once a week with prey the size of his girth. I do this with my ball pythons so maybe I am wrong when it comes to boas? He could be older, or possibly even younger then I was told. He could have mixed blood in him. I do not know. The SPCA rescued him from a hoarders house so they probably guessed for all I know.

I will start feeding every two weeks then? He isn't fat, just long.

Hmmm, now that it seems he was from a neglectful situation im changing my mind. I would bet that if anything he was completely underfed at his first home, and was actually a couple years old when you got him. Once you started feeding him regularly he likely had a massive increase in size to achieve the length that he should have been. To me this is the only explanation for such a rapid growth rate for a boa.

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Originally Posted by JoshSloane

Hmmm, now that it seems he was from a neglectful situation im changing my mind. I would bet that if anything he was completely underfed at his first home, and was actually a couple years old when you got him. Once you started feeding him regularly he likely had a massive increase in size to achieve the length that he should have been. To me this is the only explanation for such a rapid growth rate for a boa.

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Are you sure? How can a 1' 3" boa be a couple years old? I could understand being maybe few months old and under weight but not a couple years old. Here is a picture of him when he was 127g (2 months old). This picture was taken August 27th 2014, three days after I bought him.

http://i869.photobucket.com/albums/a...iper202222.jpg

In his first home he could have just been fed the occasional mouse and was static in his growth. Like I said earlier a yearling male BCI is usually hovering in the 3 foot range if fed appropriately. Given that yours is almost two feet longer than that, and isn't a year yet, there was something drastic in his feeding schedule before you got him. Although individual boa genetics do play a role, there's always a direct correlation between food intake and growth. If he was kept cool and fed minimally, he very well could be a couple years old when you got him and still be that small size.

Its very usual for younger boas who have been underfed and neglected to go through major growth spurts once they are appropriately fed. Underfeeding can permanently stunt growth, but usually once properly fed they will balloon up and achieve close to their genetically determined maximal size.

I once had a boa baby from a lipstick albino litter that was a problematic and idiosyncratic feeder. She would only eat the occasional mouse, and was vastly undersized compared to her full feeding and genetically similar siblings. Almost over night she turned on a feeding response and began pounding rats. With regular eating she rocketed up to achieve usual size. Point being, snakes don't grow in even and continuous rates. What you thought was normal growth its first year, could have been a major growth spurt making up for 2 years of malnourishment. Or you just have a super freak mega boa that has insane genetics. :)

Hahaha. He eats really well. The only time he refuses food is when he is in the blue phase of shedding. He will eat soon as he can see again whether he has shed or not. He would probably eat daily if I let him. I have never had feeding issues with him. I feed F/T and always have with him. SPCA said he was a good eater with them too. He is the only snake I have gotten from the SPCA. He also came with mites which was no problem for me. I got a snake for a $20 fee and I know how to take care of mites quickly. I only had to bathe him once and the mites were gone. I was actually looking up dogs for my aunt when I found a listing about the boa. But maybe he is two years old? Maybe he has weird genetics? Either way. I will start feeding him less now then.

Wait I thought the boa was 4'+? That length would at guessing be about 2 years old. The problem with guessing age on length is it is inaccurate at best. BCI go through growth spurts and rats generally will cause them to grow faster. The only way to truly know the age is to talk to the breeder, otherwise it is just a guesstimate at best. I'm surprised ASPCA actually had a snake as they are one of the heavy hitters who are against all exotic animals as pets, snakes included. But bottom line, at 4'+, I would guess 2 years old if fed normal, maybe a little older if fed conservatively. So I would drop him to a small rat every 2 weeks. If you notice him starting to get fat, drop the feeding times down to maybe every 3 weeks. Remember you want your boa to have a nice bread loaf shape to him, not round like a python. Although I guess some hypo boas do get kind of a rounder appearance but are still healthy but general rule of thumb is boas should look like loaves of bread in shape and pythons are more of a round shape.

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

Wait I thought the boa was 4'+? That length would at guessing be about 2 years old. The problem with guessing age on length is it is inaccurate at best. BCI go through growth spurts and rats generally will cause them to grow faster. The only way to truly know the age is to talk to the breeder, otherwise it is just a guesstimate at best. I'm surprised ASPCA actually had a snake as they are one of the heavy hitters who are against all exotic animals as pets, snakes included. But bottom line, at 4'+, I would guess 2 years old if fed normal, maybe a little older if fed conservatively. So I would drop him to a small rat every 2 weeks. If you notice him starting to get fat, drop the feeding times down to maybe every 3 weeks. Remember you want your boa to have a nice bread loaf shape to him, not round like a python. Although I guess some hypo boas do get kind of a rounder appearance but are still healthy but general rule of thumb is boas should look like loaves of bread in shape and pythons are more of a round shape.

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He has a squarish shape to him. But the problem with him being two years is he was 1'3" when I bought him in august 2014 and he has grown to 4'10" in the 8 months I have personally owned him. This is the issue. I am not going to fee him a small rat because it is too small. Like seriously small. I wont feed him a medium rat because that is too large, so I am giving him an in between size. This is the reason I wanted to know if I should feed him 10-14 days instead of every 7 days. But I am not feeding him a smaller rat. I do not want him super large but I do not want him skinny either.

Well snakes can go a long time without food and in the wild, I would guess a boa probably eats about once a month or more if he is lucky. As to growing that fast in such a short time, maybe it is just a growth spurt. My pied BP went from about 12" to 3' in just over 4 months but I fed her every 3-4 days as a baby and then backed her off to once a week once she hit 433g. This rule doesn't apply to boas as they are different than pythons but just using the growth as an example. Also as for size, different places sometimes sell rats different size labeled as different. Like the old place I used to buy rats from didn't have pups. Pups were just classified as large fuzzies. Now where I buy my rats from, a small rat is about 5" nose to butt, not counting the tail. Mediums are 6"+ and larges are LARGE. Like my 6' ate a large once and it left a huge lump in her and she went into a food coma for about 4 days. Was too big, that's why with mediums for her, it is perfect, it leaves a small lump for a day or 2. So you have to just use your judgment to rat size but rule of thumb for any boa is you just want a slight lump for a day or 2. You don't want them to have a huge bulge as it can lead to regurgitation in a boa which can screw them up for months. That is why BCC owners feed every 2 weeks even small guys and they feed smaller prey. In the case of boas, larger food is not better. And like I said, I've had my 6' BCI girl Rosey since she was about 22" and now after 2 years of owning her she is 6' and she is overweight. I fed her once a week for about 2 years. I have recently cut her back to once every 3-4 weeks as breeders and other people who have boas forever I've talked to have said she needs to be cut back to once every 3-4 weeks. Boas by nature are a slim snake, they aren't all fat and round like ball pythons or most pythons in general. And boas do better if underfed than overfed. The breeder I got my sunglow from was telling me about how his first boa died after 10 years because it was too fat and he fed it too much. He learned and told me also that he feeds even the little ones every 10 days and the big ones every 3-4 weeks. So bottom line is it is your snake and your decision but I am just telling you what I have been told and what I have learned from keeping boas and pythons. Oh also as for him growing big, he is a male? If you know he is a male, then he will top out at about 6' unless hes some mutant. The best way to know though is find out how large the parents were, that will give you an idea but if that's not possible, then I would guess 6' as that's the normal size for males and females are about 8'.

Read the COMPLETE BOA CONSTRICTOR By Vincent Russo.

Every bit of info in there in relation to feeding is clear and easy to figure out.

It's the best advice related to feeding with the goal of attaining a long lived, healthy boa constrictor.

You've also been given some good advice by some people here.

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Originally Posted by lunasjy

He has a squarish shape to him. But the problem with him being two years is he was 1'3" when I bought him in august 2014 and he has grown to 4'10" in the 8 months I have personally owned him. This is the issue.

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I think that given your snake's background and growth spurt over the last 8 months that JoshSloan's hypothesis is correct, and your boy was underfed or maintenance fed by his prior owner - basically he got enough food to keep him alive, but not enough to grow. Snakes can live for a long time on minimal food. Once you started feeding him properly he grew into his age, so to speak.