Temperature gradient and heat sources: the never-ending headache!

[dkatz4]

There are a number of things that could be happening here but I'l list a few key things to look at.

#1:

You live in Jersey and guess what?? Your snake may be experiencing spring climate change. Boas have been hard wired over the last several million years to respond to environmental changes in the wild. It would make sense that these subtle and not so subtle changes are detected by them in captivity. This is the time of year where day and night time temps, humidity, pressure and daylight hours are all changing. Your BC will most certainly pick up on this even if you perceive everything is the same in their enclosure. My locality Colombian BC is fairly inactive from November until mid April. Once the seasonal changes come, he begins to respond.

#2:

Your boa is a male. If I read correctly, it is a C/A male and they often mature at smaller sizes and younger ages than some other BCI and BCC.
The moving around could be his quest for a female.

#3:

I'll list a few possible reasons here. First, your snake IS being fed properly and it is displaying some hunting behaviors. "Fat and happy" boas don't move much, and "fat and happy" is not what you want. If your doing a good job of feeding and not overfeeding, you'll see increased activity from your animal, because its system is clean and the metabolic cycle is complete. I personally want my BC to become hungry and work for the next meal. This is where a lot of people tend to screw up and feed too soon. You want your BC to be active and moving around for a bit before the next feeding. It is very healthy and natural. Being curled up 24/7 for 365 days out of the year and getting a meal on a set schedule isn't what Mother Nature had in mind.

Another part of this could be your animal is actually using the thermal gradient you are providing. The larger the enclosure, the more options your snake will have to use different climate zones. Your numbers seemed to be adequate.

#4:

Time for a new cage? This is hard to say. I can't see your setup, but I always prefer professional, plastic caging for BCs. They will climb and exhibit a lot of behaviors that you won't see in more restrictive types of caging. Don't get me wrong here as people far more experienced than I am have been, keeping and breeding boas is caging that I'm not interested in using.

Caging may not be an issue at all in your case but I'm including it.

I don't use a huge cage for my BC but I provide 20" of ceiling space and 4 feet of width and 30" of depth.



He uses it all.

Keep and eye on things if you suspect a problem, but Reinz was correct in thinking the temps seemed to be fine.

Feed conservatively, WAIT for all signs of the previous meal to be gone. Some people will feed a boa before it has eliminated its last meal. I disagree with that and feel it is unhealthy for the snake.

Buy a copy of THE COMPLETE BOA CONSTRICTOR by Vincent Russo and pay attention to anything written by Gus Rentfro on the web or in any text.

At this point, I would not be worried about anything. The first 3 things I listed are probably what you are seeing.

The last thing I will add. Buy a thermostat that allows you to control a night temp drop. A warm day can be followed by cooler night temps. Your snake won't be in eternally hot or cold conditions if you are letting temps dip at night.

Look at species specific literature too.

Gio, thank you so much for the thorough response let me attempt to reply in kind.
1: Very interesting – I've only had him since early March so it's hard to accurately note patterns of behavior – but I will definitely start logging his activity levels along with his other processes (eating, eliminating, shedding, etc)

2: Hmmm, well there's not much I can really do about that. The family dog used to have a deflated soccerball that he would use for… "courting", I don't suppose there's a snake equivalent for that kind of thing ;P

3: this is another topic of much debate it seems. I am totally of the less is more School of thought in terms of feeding; my only reservation is that at two years old he still has a bit of growing to do before he hits his adult size and while I certainly don't want to power feed him to grow him faster I don't want to stunt him either. I think you and I may have actually had this discussion on one of my previous posts? For the time being I have him on a 14 day feeding schedule on the smallest small rats I can find. I figure when he's three I will really start spacing out the meals leting him poop and get a little hungry. - unless you think that would be really bad! -

4: I think his cage size is fine for now, though not terribly attractive, it's pretty tall for a little guy like him sometimes I worry that there's too much open space and he gets nervous some more interesting furniture might benefit him. One of his hides is very climbable (one of those resin Mayan temples from the pet store) and he has a half decent piece of driftwood, but I'm sure I can improve upon it. I'm sort of waiting to build more impressive enclosure for him once I've really mastered all this husbandry stuff. His current set up though adequate is riddled with the evidence of my learning curve. You're tank looks amazing. I will post a picture of mine a little later when I get the chance

Vince book is going to be my Father's Day present, I think. I got a copy of "the boa constrictor manual" by De Vosjoli. It was OK, but much lighter than I was looking for and, to be honest, is what got me all concerned about temperatures because he prescribes a higher gradient and I am using. Also prescribes a more vigorous feeding schedule, but again, I am inclined to be a bit more conservative.

On a separate note, today I took him out of his tank after his post-meal 72 hour waiting period (Always the longest three days) and for the first time he actually slithered out to greet me and moved right into my hands. Usually I sort of have to chase him across the tank a little bit and let him settle in my hands, but today I dare say he had actually missed me or whatever the snake version of that feeling is.