Behira - 2016 Female Ivory Ghost - First BCI

[CloudtheBoa]

It seems some others have mentioned the same thing about potential overfeeding. Keep in mind, boas have a limit to what they will eat. Some will eat themselves to death, some will regulate their intake, but it takes a LOT of food to get them to stop eating. If your boa is willingly going off of food every so often, considering what you've said about his feeding and the large size for his age, that is likely what's going on. He's getting more food than he needs, so he's going off of food. I went through a similar experience with Cloud when I was unknowingly power-feeding him. He was eating jumbo-sized rats when he should have still been on smalls (he was 4.5'-5'), after a few feedings, he started missing feeds until he went from weekly feedings to every 4 weeks on his own. I dropped him back down, and he went back to eating weekly, but I no longer feed my boas that often.

Your boa is already a few feet longer than my 2.5 year old boas at only 1.5 years old. My boas that are an entire year older than your boa are 2'-2.5' shorter than your boa. They are both getting small rats every 3 weeks, not jumbos every 1 or 2 weeks. That feeding schedule is power feeding, and would explain his rapid growth.

I do want to say, it is easy to assume that is normal growth and the feeding is acceptable, because most people do power feed their snakes and 6'-6.5' is common by 2-3 years old on the average feeding schedule. 1.5 years is a bit young, but I have heard of it. Most breeders feed their snakes with rapid growth in mind for early breeding. Instead of waiting 5-6 years for their females to properly mature and 3+ years for males, they get females to breeding size by about 2-3 years old and males as early as 18 months. This unfortunately reduces the viability of their reproduction, drastically shortens their lifespan (by up to a quarter of their potential lifespan), and increases the chance of mortality while gravid or from fatty liver disease.

Since power feeding is the norm for breeders, and breeders have a lot of influence over the community, it is easy for inexperienced owners to assume that feeding method is ok. So many people are stuck on this feeding regimen, that even a lot of keepers who view their feeding as conservative still feed a lot more food than is necessary or healthy for boas. You want a slow, even growth for maximum health and longevity. Getting them up to adult sizes before 4-6 years old is quite unhealthy for them, but since that's a norm, it's hard to gauge what is healthy growth for a lot of keepers.

Most of the biggest, most experienced breeders of boas (especially breeders that actually study boas in their natural habitat) feed in similar manners as I do, as they've found out that boas live longer and breed better when fed a lot less than the average keeper feeds their boas. Many boas would die by 6-15 years, so several breeders, such as Vin Russo, developed a dramatic rehaul in boa feeding to increase health in their collections. This is why my advise is such that is, and why I mentioned the possibility of power feeding to you with your boa.