My new (and first!) Boa - questions...

[waltah!]

You can use Aspen bedding if you want a nicer look. They will usually get the shed started on something like a hide or bowl and the rest should come off as the snake moves around providing humidity is good.

[Neal]

You can keep it on Aspen like waltah said, or even cypress mulch. Cypress mulch holds the humidity pretty well, just make sure you get the t-rex double milled cypress mulch. It's for reptiles.

[Sethian]

Alright guys, thank you for all your help!!

the shed was finally successful yesterday and the skin from her body came off in one piece. the rest of her skin from her face that she was having a hard time with gradually flaked off throughout the night, and today she looks as good as new. i feel terrible though that i put her through this, and i hope i get the humidity right from now on.

i changed the substrate in her enclosure to this "Zilla Lizard Litter Bark Blend" I got at Petco. She seems to like it and i noticed it stays moist for quite a while when i spray the enclosure so it helps with the humidity, and keeping it roughly between 50% and 60%. however, the humidity still keeps on dropping down past 50% after a few hours, causing me to have to spray everything again.

i will look into the aspen bedding that you mentioned to see if that works better.

a new question: now that i have this bark substrate, i obviously shouldn't feed her in her main enclosure anymore. i've gotten a seperate little box ready for her to feed in, and i will try it out on wednesday when it'll be time for her to feed again. however, i know that i shouldn't handle her after she has fed... but i can't leave her in this new box forever. how long do i need to wait until after she's fed and rehinged her jaws for me to life her up again and put her in her main enclosure? are there any useful signs or behaviour that would let me know its okay to quickly pick her up and put her back?

[Neal]

I feed my anaconda in a seperate enclosure. So here's what you do:

I put my snake int he seperate enclosure with paper towl as the substrate becuase I throw it away after. So anyways, I put the snake in the seperate enclosure, then I usually kill the mouse then I wave it in front of her to let her eat it, but feed your boa however you have been. Once you see that she has finished swallowing her prey and I mean fully, no tail sticking out, jaws re-aligned and all, then you use 2 hands to go under her and support her body and put her back in her regular enclosure.

[Vypyrz]

I used to feed in a separate tub and what I did was put a piece of cardboard in the bottom of the tub. When the snake was finished I would just gently pick up the cardboard with the snake on it and let them crawl from the cardboard back into their tank...


Rob

[Sethian]

thanks for all your help guys. i fed her today in a seperate box and it worked out fine. picking her up afterwards was fine too.

only problem was the she swallowed the dead fuzzie with the feet first. i heard it's best have them eat the head first due to hair-line or something...

i tried to help her out, but she got all defensive and didn't want me to interfere so i let her swallow it the way she wanted. i'm sure everything will be fine, but i just want to know if it really is better to have them swallow their prey head first, and what the consequences might be otherwise

[Aeries]

It's typically easier for a snake to swallow head first, but that's it. There are no negative concequences for downing it a different way.

Do you have a thermostat, lamp dimmer or rheostat on that heat pad? Without one it will probably burn your snake, and you shouldn't need the combination of both the pad and the light, just the pad should suffice.
As for humidity, taking away that light will help from drying things up. A sterilite container or some type of vision cage is much more suitible for holding it humidity than a glass cage with a screen top. Those cages are only good for reptiles with low humidity requirements. For now, trying covering up most of the screen with foil or a towel to help hold the humidity in.

[Sethian]

no i don't have a dimmer on the heat pad.

right now, with the heat pad and the daylight, the temperature in the enclosure (on the cool side where she spends most of her time) stays between 80-85 degrees. I thought this was what a Boa needed.

At night i switch out the daylamp with a night light that gives off a dark purple light, and causes the temperature to drop a bit. i never switch off the heat pad.

she spends a lot of time in her hide on the cool side, so maybe it is a bit too hot for her. i thought i had the right temperature gradient though.

[Aeries]

Are you measuring ambient temperature or surface temperature? Do you have your probe directly on the heat pad?

[retic720]

Hey everyone,

A few days ago I finally got my first snake ever. I've been planning on this for a while now, and I was going to get a ball python, but I ended up being drawn to this beautiful baby female Het Albino Boa, and decided to just go with my gut feeling on this one.

And boy, do I love this snake!... I'm actually doing the best I can to control myself and leave her alone so she can get acclimated to her new home... otherwise i'd be behaving like an overly-smothering mamma bear

Two days ago I gave her her first thawed out fuzzie to eat, and she ate it no problem. However, she didn't strike at it, but just started devouring it... is this normal because the prey is dead? For the most part I'm just glad that she is eating, which must mean she is happy enough in her new home.

She hasn't defecated yet though, and it has been two days. Is this normal? How long does it take on average for a baby boa to digest one small meal like that?

And lastly, her eyes turned blue a few days ago, so I guessed she was going to shed soon... however now her eyes are back to normal, and she hasn't shed yet. Is it still going to happen?

I'm making sure that throughout all of this I haven't been handeling her at all or stressing her out so that she can get acclimated, digest, and shed in peace

Amazing boa. When I started out, they weren't quite available and ended up with a male ball python.

Fast forward 3 years later, boas are common AND quite affordable here. From what I hear, they (usually) don't get to humongous sizes like the burm/afrock (unless you got one from large stock) and they do NOT have the feeding issue ball pythons may have.

If given the chance to go back in time, I would've saved up some more for a boa constrictor instead of a ball...but I'm happy nevertheless with my champ of a ball and my retics