New boa new to keeping boas

[Skiball]

Hello everyone, well I am finally ready to make the move from BP's to a boa.

A local shop has sexed me a female out of their smaller RTB's. And I will be picking it up tomorrow evening after work.

I already have some Rubbermaid bins I can use for her as she grows until I build her a enclosure. The cool thing is I work for a glass/window company. We always have spare woods from the crates the glass comes in so I can build a nice BIG enclosure. And I can get glass at very large sizes for next to nothing, if not for free.

So outside of enclosure needs. The only real questions I have are...

What online sites do you use to order frozen feeders(of all sizes up to rabbits and how many do you buy at a time to last you how long)?

What type of heaters do you use? Do they prefer belly heat as opposed to a light?

How different of a set up/needs will she need compared to my BP?

Will a taller bin be better for a boa?

And that's pretty much wraps up my questions and concerns. I will have more info on her tomorrow. I'll know her weight/length. It's just a regular Colombian, but I have always been a fan of the originals. For the most part out of the 4 they had 3 of them looked very nice 1 was rather plane/dark looking.

Thanks look forward to the info. Pics will follow tomorrow night. Just excited about it tonight and this will give me something to read why at work and thinking about it tomorrow.

-Ski-

[Eazyyyb]

As for getting rodents online most people will tell you rodentpro.com they have good service and prices. Baby boas should eat every 10 days and every 2 weeks when bigger

belly heat is always preferred if available, but lamps will work fine too.

They will be happy with the same set up that BPs use. Something i notice with mine is he does appreciate a fake plant in there to climb but thats not necessary. 2 hides of course, and a water bowl, but adult boas usually dont need a hide

i have my boa in a sterilite 41 quart tub which is only like 6inches high, i have had him in a tank 13 inches high before and never really saw him exploring north/south too much hahah

hope this helps, im sure someone more experienced will chime in soon!

[Evenstar]

A tub is fine. Go with a 32 qt if your baby is small, or a 41 qt if she's a little bigger. You can use either flexwatt or a UTH. I like the Ultratherm heat pads from Reptile Basics. They are very good quality and safer than ZooMed. The Ultratherms are the best choice for use with a tub.

No matter WHAT heat source you decide on, you MUST use a thermostat!! You can get a Hydrofarm off Amazon for about $30.

Put a pair of hide boxes and a water bowl in there and you are good to go. Heat lamps suck and will kill humidity. They would also be difficult to use with a tub because of the lid.

Temps are going to be slightly cooler than for your BP. If you set the t-stat to 90, that should work well and create appropriate ambient temps too so long as your room isn't frigid and the tub is away from drafts. I like a hotspot of 88 with ambient temps at 76-78 for my boas.

For babies, taller is subjective. Boas will climb if given the opportunity. Care requirements are the same, roughly, as for BPs, but boas do behave a bit differently. They will climb, they aren't shy generally, and they will use whatever space you give them.

STAY AWAY from Rodent Pro!! They have had issues recently and their quality just isn't up to par. I would rather pay a bit more for higher quality rodents. I like Loxahatchee and Layne Labs. They are both very good!!

I feed BABY boas every 7-10 days, juveniles, every 10, young adults every 14, and adults every 14-21 days. Less is more with boas. Do not overfeed!

[Skiball]

Thanks for the info guys. One thing I forgot to mention is I have over 200g of fish tanks in the room the snakes are in as well, humidity is never a issue.

Would still like to hear the opinions of other boa owners. Hopefully this snow don't mess up my plans to pick her up tomorrow.

[xFenrir]

So outside of enclosure needs. The only real questions I have are...

What online sites do you use to order frozen feeders (of all sizes up to rabbits and how many do you buy at a time to last you how long)?
I get my rats from a local show. There are a few people there that sell F/T, and I like being able to inspect them before I buy. My girl Satin is at about 6ft/12lbs, and I feed her either a large rat every 2-3 weeks. For a while she was on jumbos every 4-5 weeks, but they just seemed too big to me so I switched back to large. I would rather feed a smaller meal a little more frequently than a larger meal less often. Boas are easy to get fat from overfeeding, so most follow the rule of thumb that prey should be smaller than the boas' circumference. I don't know if you have a show that sells feeders near you, so if you don't I can't say what sites are good to use.

What type of heaters do you use? Do they prefer belly heat as opposed to a light?
I use both a UTH and a infared 100w heat bulb. We built my girl's enclosure to 6ft long, 2ft wide and 3ft tall, and it gets chilly in the winter. The UTH is the main source of heat, and we keep it at about 88F. The light we have on a timer; in the winter it's alternating on/off every hour to keep the temps up, but in the summer we switch to a 50w bulb and go 1hr on, 2hrs off since it's warmer. Since the enclosure is melamine wood, we cut out a notch in the bottom for a glass pane to set on (we disassembled an aquarium and used two of the pieces together, since the first pane we got shattered from the heat when we accidentally rested the heat lamp on it) and caulked it in place to attach the UTH to. For the light we drilled out about a 1/2ft hole in the top, covered the opening and about an inch outward with aluminum tape to keep the wood from burning, put a metal light grate over it (it's meant to sit right next to lights, so it doesn't get hot), and cut a matching hole in a square foot piece of tile to keep it off of the enclosure entirely.

These pictures are before we put the metal tape/tile on, but just to give you the idea of the setup:




You can see in the background how the light looks.


How different of a set up/needs will she need compared to my BP?
I seem to notice with my girl (and from what others say) that their BCIs like their temps a touch cooler than BPs (~77F ambient, ~88F hotspot as opposed to ~80F ambient, ~90F hotspot), but other than that she was set up pretty much like my BP was, only in a larger enclosure. Both had UTH and an optional heat lamp just in case ambient temps needed to be bumped up, both were on aspen bedding. The only real difference with my boa (other than temps) were that I learned to appreciate a nice set of long feeding tongs. Boas are known as "garbage disposals" for a reason, and nothing stands between my girl and her food. xD I built my set up to 6ft L x 3ft W since I wasn't exactly sure how big she would get; there are two general rules you can follow with sizing: 1 square foot of floorspace for every foot of snake, or the length and width of the enclosure equals the length of the snake. My girl only got a little over 6ft, but boas are not shy and she will use every inch of her enclosure. I don't have hides in my setup because Satin never used them (she used them for about the first 2-ish weeks we had her, then she just sat on them lol), but every boa is different, and for a juvie it might help to provide them just in case.

Will a taller bin be better for a boa?
Like I (and others) said before, boas will use any space you give them.

[xFenrir]

I just noticed you are in the same area as me! I go to the Havre de Grace show; they have it once a month and there's a show next Saturday. Just Google All-Maryland Reptile Show.

[I-KandyReptiles]

Everything has pretty much been answered.

If you give them room, boas tend to be semi arboreal. Unless their name is Conga, then she's pretty much arboreal

[Skiball]

Thanks for the replies guys. Them enclosures look great. I defiantly have some ideas brewing. Like I said the enclosure build won't be a problem for now I was just looking for a size of a Rubbermaid bin to keep her in until she grows out of it.

Slow day at work because of the weather so I have nothing but time to think about picking her up tonight.. 😁

[Skiball]

As promised... The update.

I did decide against a female by the end of the work day. Just because of the housing Reqs and huge food she would later need. Me being un sure of the future. It was in mine and the snakes best interest not to get a pet that could potentially grow so large.

That being said I did however get a male.

And here are some pics. Mind you he was very skittish so was hard to snap a lot of them but I think I got the basics.

Here's... Forest. (Yes named after my all time favorite movie)

[Evenstar]

Very nice!! Keep in mind that boas are like potato chips. Betcha can't have just one!!