Handling

How long after feeding should I wait to handle?

36-48 hours

What should he be eating? The previous owner had him on large mice, he is 5 yo and only 4ft...about the size of a BP really...I was planning on feeding him the 5 f/t large mice he gave me when I picked him up and then switch to f/t small-med rats since they would be about his width. Planning on feeding every 7 days instead of the 14 he was on before.

Feed ~the width of the snake. We feed our boas prey that is a little bit bigger around than them on a weekly basis, and they switched easily from a 14 day schedule to a weekly schedule with us. If he has been getting small meals, dont push big meals on him too fast.

my 5 1/2 - 6 foot boa is eating xl rats

This is something that I take very serious in reference to handling. Granted I don't handle my boas that much to begin with. But for me, minimum 4-5 days. To most it's a long time, but I've never had a boa give back a meal because of it. So it must work. Besides, those BCC's keep you on your toes sometimes. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ssjsmits

This is something that I take very serious in reference to handling. Granted I don't handle my boas that much to begin with. But for me, minimum 4-5 days. To most it's a long time, but I've never had a boa give back a meal because of it. So it must work. Besides, those BCC's keep you on your toes sometimes. :)

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Yeah man, with BCC I do the same...however, they don't eat as regularly as BCI do. My BCC only eat once every 2 weeks whereas my BCI eat every 7-10 days mostly.

Yeah I hear you, but I only have a couple BCI's so I just practice the same guidlines as if they were BCC. I'm weird like that. ;)

Safety never hurts! I don't handle my snakes as often as I should, so I generally don't worry about this topic too much. I just remember when I had 2-3 snakes that I always waited a minimum of 2 days.