Noob Boa Questions from a BP Guy

[Evenstar]

It is true that there are good chains out there (though I've never been to a Petland), but I still shy away from any place that can't tell me exactly where they get all of their babies from. Even if the chain is reputable, the breeders the chain buys from may not be. I'm usually not opposed to buying snakes from good pet stores, except when it comes to boas (the whole IBD thing again, not knowing the boa's history, etc).

Most breeders don't advertise their available normal neos (I don't know why, I think they'd get more business if they did), but the truth is in every litter of morphs, they get a ton of normal babies in addition to whatever morphs, and all breeders have a plethora of normal babies, it just takes an email to find out about them.

Yeeeah.... Considering that darn ibd thing, I would have to agree with this. I do believe that ibd is somewhat blown out of proportion now and isn't something to be necessarily paranoid about, but it does pay to be careful - very careful - when buying boas. Even if you only have 1 other snake, it would be tragic if it died because your boa brought something into the house. There's another thread regarding this in this same forum you might want to check out, but basically, if you're going to buy a boa, get a baby (babies don't incubate the virus nearly as long) and buy from a reputable breeder only. Just my .02....

Incidentally, Tim at Special K had some very nice "normal" babies for about $30-40. I don't intend to "push" a particular breeder. I am sure there are other great breeders here who have some good babies available. But since I just worked with Tim myself, I happened to take note of some other things he had. Might be worth checking with him....