Intrigued with boas.....

[Rob]

I need a buddy like that....

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Few and far between he's good people.

[Evenstar]

I had to wait til I got home from work before posting again, but it seems like everything else I was going to say has been said!

A Hog Island or other "dwarf" locality would be another good choice for sure and not likely to exceed 6ft.

I recommend a 4x2x1 or maybe go 18" on height for any species of boa except for a large female BCI or any BCC - I personally wouldn't use anything less than a 6'x2'x18" for them.

I have gotten all three of my boas from Tim at Special K Reptiles. He is fantastic to work with!! Not sure if he has the dwarf localities or Brazilian Rainbows though. But if you want a nice and healthy young or baby male BCI, there's no one I can think of who'd be better. But there are some other excellent breeders out there - just thought I'd mention one off the bat.

Welcome to the world of boas! You won't regret it!

[Daybreaker]

Boas have been catching my eye and interest lately. I like the looks of redtails, and dumerils. I don't know much about any of the boas. I do know that I don't really have room for a great big enclosure to keep a redtail in. Which boas stay smaller, and which have the best temperment?

I'd look into CAs and Nics, they tend to stay a lot smaller than other BCIs and still come in nice morphs. Hogs are also "dwarf" boas, but some females have gotten just as large as Colombian females.
If you don't have the room for a larger enclosure (I'm look at at LEAST a 4' cage for my male and 6' cages for my females when they get larger) then I'd shoot for a smaller species to start out with. I doubt you'd end up with a monster boa but better safe than sorry!

How fast do the hatchlings grow?
Like, when do babies reach adult size? I know each snake grows at their own rate, but a general ball park figure would be? (w/i a year? two years? more?)

Hatchling growth depends on the snake. Some have BIG spurts, some are slow growers. For example, my jungle male I got back in May of '11 was at 217 grams when I got him and of April 8th he's up to 1400 grams. Big spurt IMO. But the little albino girl I got in November of '11 at 132 grams is only at 214 grams as of April 8th 2012.

Adult size is on personal opinion, I think when the snakes becomes three+ years old it's considered an "adult" - my 5' male right now I would still consider a "subadult" as he was born in June '10.

Yeah, I would like to find a care sheet, that shows temps and humidity, as well as feeding guidlines for them as well. All though I would imagine once a week for little guys?

I do once a week for the younger ones, then move to 10 days when they get on mediums (though 2-3 weeks is good too) and will probably scale back feeding even more when they get on larges. Good to avoid obesity in boas: they easily get fat via overfeeding.

I keep their humidity at the standard 50% with perfect sheds, and give them 88-90 hotspots. I noticed my boas tend to like cooler temps over warmer ones like the BPs.

And because I can....some pics of my guy and girls

[Vypyrz]

The three boas that I got as neonates seemed to have their first big growth spurts around the 9-12 month mark.

[weird_science04]

I personally love the BCI's and BCC's. Let me just say, I was concerned about size when I first got Prometheus. Now Prometheus is in the picture with my husband. However, here is his baby picture back in 2005:





Now I don't have pictures of him growing up because unfortunately, they are not digital and my scanner isn't working right now. Those baby pictures I scanned a while ago.

As for size, I purposely got male because I didn't know if I could handle a larger female. I was nervous for my first snake. No lie... now I am pretty confident...lol

Prometheus took years to get large. I remember when I bought this house 3 years ago, he could hang out around my arm pretty easily as sorta seen here:


So at 4 years of age, he was probably only eating small rats getting ready to move up towards medium rats. Ball Pythons move up in prey size quicker than boa's. (From my experience).

Personally, the dwarf boa's are beautiful but they are not as diversified with morphs as the BCI's.

Here is a sunglow that was born in 2008:
Baby photo:


Here he was 2 years old:


This picture was taken just a few weeks ago (4 years old):


Another 2008 snake, hypo cyclone:
Arrival pictures in 2009:




In 2011: (3 years old)




The end of 2011 before I put him in with my albino for breeding:


A jungle born in 2010:


Taken in the summer of 2011: (You can see how little he still is at 1 year of age)


Taken this past winter (couldn't resist, he was coloring up so nicely)





Here are a couple of 2011 babies: (taken after it warmed up here recently)

A snow:





An arabesque:





So, as you can see, I don't think they grow very fast. If you get a baby, it doesn't matter if it is male or female, you will be completely comfortable with them when they get bigger because you were there while they grew.

Just for show, a couple pictures of my BCC's:

A 2009 Suriname:


A 2008 Suriname: (Breeding with my female in the previous post)


When it comes to boa's, I wouldn't worry about size as much as a boa that just grabs your attention. A boa will be fine in a 4 foot enclosure. If you can go bigger, than that is great but it is not requirement.

If you do get a boa, please, please, please, shoot me a PM to the link. I would LOVE to see pictures and with my work schedule, I don't get on here as much as I would like to and I miss a lot of threads.

Star

[DooLittle]

I'd look into CAs and Nics, they tend to stay a lot smaller than other BCIs and still come in nice morphs. Hogs are also "dwarf" boas, but some females have gotten just as large as Colombian females.
If you don't have the room for a larger enclosure (I'm look at at LEAST a 4' cage for my male and 6' cages for my females when they get larger) then I'd shoot for a smaller species to start out with. I doubt you'd end up with a monster boa but better safe than sorry!



Hatchling growth depends on the snake. Some have BIG spurts, some are slow growers. For example, my jungle male I got back in May of '11 was at 217 grams when I got him and of April 8th he's up to 1400 grams. Big spurt IMO. But the little albino girl I got in November of '11 at 132 grams is only at 214 grams as of April 8th 2012.

Adult size is on personal opinion, I think when the snakes becomes three+ years old it's considered an "adult" - my 5' male right now I would still consider a "subadult" as he was born in June '10.



I do once a week for the younger ones, then move to 10 days when they get on mediums (though 2-3 weeks is good too) and will probably scale back feeding even more when they get on larges. Good to avoid obesity in boas: they easily get fat via overfeeding.

I keep their humidity at the standard 50% with perfect sheds, and give them 88-90 hotspots. I noticed my boas tend to like cooler temps over warmer ones like the BPs.

And because I can....some pics of my guy and girls

Thank you, and yours are all very pretty!

[weird_science04]

Oh, also, you can get a really great care guide on redtailboas.com forum. Found at this link: http://www.redtailboas.com/f110/down...ion-3-a-31312/

If it is inappropriate for me to link to another forum mods, please remove this post. It is not meant to advertise another forum but to allow this OP to see the care guide for boa's.

Star

[DooLittle]

I personally love the BCI's and BCC's. Let me just say, I was concerned about size when I first got Prometheus. Now Prometheus is in the picture with my husband. However, here is his baby picture back in 2005:





Now I don't have pictures of him growing up because unfortunately, they are not digital and my scanner isn't working right now. Those baby pictures I scanned a while ago.

As for size, I purposely got male because I didn't know if I could handle a larger female. I was nervous for my first snake. No lie... now I am pretty confident...lol

Prometheus took years to get large. I remember when I bought this house 3 years ago, he could hang out around my arm pretty easily as sorta seen here:


So at 4 years of age, he was probably only eating small rats getting ready to move up towards medium rats. Ball Pythons move up in prey size quicker than boa's. (From my experience).

Personally, the dwarf boa's are beautiful but they are not as diversified with morphs as the BCI's.

Here is a sunglow that was born in 2008:
Baby photo:


Here he was 2 years old:


This picture was taken just a few weeks ago (4 years old):


Another 2008 snake, hypo cyclone:
Arrival pictures in 2009:




In 2011: (3 years old)




The end of 2011 before I put him in with my albino for breeding:


A jungle born in 2010:


Taken in the summer of 2011: (You can see how little he still is at 1 year of age)


Taken this past winter (couldn't resist, he was coloring up so nicely)





Here are a couple of 2011 babies: (taken after it warmed up here recently)

A snow:





An arabesque:





So, as you can see, I don't think they grow very fast. If you get a baby, it doesn't matter if it is male or female, you will be completely comfortable with them when they get bigger because you were there while they grew.

Just for show, a couple pictures of my BCC's:

A 2009 Suriname:


A 2008 Suriname: (Breeding with my female in the previous post)


When it comes to boa's, I wouldn't worry about size as much as a boa that just grabs your attention. A boa will be fine in a 4 foot enclosure. If you can go bigger, than that is great but it is not requirement.

If you do get a boa, please, please, please, shoot me a PM to the link. I would LOVE to see pictures and with my work schedule, I don't get on here as much as I would like to and I miss a lot of threads.

Star

I will pm you I'm thinking more like when than if.... I'm not worried about size for handling reasons, just for cage/enclosure size. I don't just don't have room for a big enclosure.

[weird_science04]

Sweet!

This is what I have housed most of my boa's in right now: http://www.boaphileplastics.com/421d.html I personally wish they had more height though. So, in retrospect I wish I would had gotten ones that were 18" high instead.

There are many plastic cages out there though for snakes and they are relatively inexpensive.

Star

[DooLittle]

So, one more question. Until they (obviously) need to move to bigger prey, can they eat Asf's? We have a colony of those for our bps. Could boas eat until they needed to move up??