Progression of my boas

[Dxw425]

Hi all! I wanted to start a progression thread for my two boas, 0.1 Normal het sharp and 0.1 salmon possible (66%) het sharp. I think it will be cool to be able to look back and see their growth overtime, and maybe others will like to see as well. First off here is Stella, my normal. As of these pictures she is a few days over 7 months old:
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She is an awesome snake and growing very fast. I was worried about how large she seemed compared to what ive seen other snakes her age are but from what i can tell i am not over feeding. She gets a rat pup (they average 27g when i weight them out) every 7-10 days. Ive documented every meal/shed/poo since shes been in my care, and everything is going great. Ive had her since 8/10/16 and she was born 6/29/16. Next is my Salmon possible het albino i picked up this past week. She had quite the temper when i brought her home, she was among the lightest of the hypos the breeder had and he said he was not sure when she had shed last so i took her and she shed that night. I was told she was born on 5/9/16, making her older than stella, but she is way smaller. The mice he has been feeding her are tiny, look to be mice fuzzies. She has yet to be named.
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I am still trying to find the right name for my hypo. Also, i plan on making a DIY lightbox and having a friend bring over his nice camera to try and get a couple of quality pictures so you can see their true colors, these pictures from my phone with bad lighting do no justice!

[Dxw425]

Oh and the 2nd picture of Stella she appears really round, its just the camera angle and the way she was wrapped around my hand.

[Dezoruba]

Theyre both gorgeous! But why aren't you quarantining your new pickup? If I were you I would not be letting her interact with Stella until you've quarantined her for at least 3 months... that's how diseases spread. Even if she seems 100% healthy you can never be too safe

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[Sauzo]

Nice looking boas but dang they are are huge for that age or its the pictures. Rango my little salmon 100% het snowglow boy was born Mar 31st 2016 and he's on hopper mice and about 24". He has been slow grown though. And yeah you definitely want to quarantine. I mean at the least if you have to keep them in the same room, don't let anything between the new snake come into contact with the old snakes and always wash your hands inbetween handling and stuff. Here's a picture of Rango to give you an idea of how much smaller he is.




Oh and honestly, I would feed your snakes mice until they are big enough for weaned rats. Baby rats have underdeveloped muscle, bones and organs and are filled with mothers milk which isn't great for a boa. All my boas get mice until large adult mice no longer leave any sort of lump at all, then they go up to small weaned rats.

Also with boas, they develop the fat around their organs first so by the time you actually see the fat on the outside, it has already been going on in the inside for awhile.

[cletus]

Really nice snakes! Love that tail!

[Dxw425]

You know that is a wonderful question. In my excitement i completely forgot. They are from the same breeder, not that that makes it okay. Is there any point in separating them (rooms of course, they have their own enclosures) now? I feel pretty bad now that i let that completely slip my mind Ill be sure to have no more interaction between them for the next few months and be extra careful to sanitize anything they come in contact with.

And Sauzo, yeah stella is pretty large. Her rats are hardly noticeable when she eats them, and she appears to have good muscle tone but im kind of worried that she's too big being about 36 inches at 7 months old. She was larger than her siblings when i picked her up though, so hopefully it's more genetic than improper feeding proportions. Rango looks awesome and appears to be about the same size as my new hypo. Would you suggest i switch stella over to mice of a similar size? or spread her meals out further?

[Reinz]

Good looking Boas you have there, I especially love that tail on your girl!

[Dxw425]

You know that is a wonderful question. In my excitement i completely forgot. They are from the same breeder, not that that makes it okay. Is there any point in separating them (rooms of course, they have their own enclosures) now? I feel pretty bad now that i let that completely slip my mind Ill be sure to have no more interaction between them for the next few months and be extra careful to sanitize anything they come in contact with.

And Sauzo, yeah stella is pretty large. Her rats are hardly noticeable when she eats them, and she appears to have good muscle tone but im kind of worried that she's too big being about 36 inches at 7 months old. She was larger than her siblings when i picked her up though, so hopefully it's more genetic than improper feeding proportions. Rango looks awesome and appears to be about the same size as my new hypo. Would you suggest i switch stella over to mice of a similar size? or spread her meals out further?

I saw in your last paragraph you already recommended mice. Im going to make the switch and give her smaller meals for the next few weeks, i never give her anything too large but i want to be sure i cant see the mice when she eats them, she is the best tempered snake and i really dont want her to have health problems from growing too fast or eating too much

[Sauzo]

You know that is a wonderful question. In my excitement i completely forgot. They are from the same breeder, not that that makes it okay. Is there any point in separating them (rooms of course, they have their own enclosures) now? I feel pretty bad now that i let that completely slip my mind Ill be sure to have no more interaction between them for the next few months and be extra careful to sanitize anything they come in contact with.

And Sauzo, yeah stella is pretty large. Her rats are hardly noticeable when she eats them, and she appears to have good muscle tone but im kind of worried that she's too big being about 36 inches at 7 months old. She was larger than her siblings when i picked her up though, so hopefully it's more genetic than improper feeding proportions. Rango looks awesome and appears to be about the same size as my new hypo. Would you suggest i switch stella over to mice of a similar size? or spread her meals out further?

I personally feed mice until they are large enough for weaned rats. Some people like to start early on rats but for boas who eat anything, I don't see the point really. As for size, she might just be a big baby lol. I don't think you need to space out the feedings yet. I usually do weekly until they are on weaned rats. Then I go to 2-3 weeks per feeding. Then once on medium rats and larger, I just stick to 2-3 weeks for females and 3-4 weeks for males.

And thanks. Rango is definitely a little looker. Thinking of pairing him up with a snow or snowglow female to make my own sharp snows, snowglows, sharp albinos and sharp sunglows but who knows. I've never bred boas so it would something new and I would have at least 5 years to anyways

[Dxw425]

Alright, thanks for the advice. Yeah he will definitely produce some nice offspring someday! I would like to have a litter eventually just to say ive done it and to have a nice boa i produced, but yeah no time soon im looking at a lot longer than five years. I just think they make such great pets! though i could see myself letting my collection grow a bit, i just graduated from college and have a relatively small amount of debt, so once im a little better off i might expand and consider a future breeding project. But for now its just awesome to learn and watch them grow.