Thanks Connie but Jimmi knows waaaaaaaaay more about boa's than I think I'll ever know LOL.

Anyways, to the OP....I think a nice male BCI aka common boa aka Colombian Boa aka boa constrictor imperator is a great choice. They don't tend to need the absolutes in temps and humidity that ball pythons do (hence the "more forgiving" comment). We keep our boa's a bit cooler than the ball pythons and they seem to do just beautifully. In fact, unless it's feeding day or the summer evening temps drop, we don't kick on their heat at all as the room they are in stays very warm all summer long. Of course, in the cooler months they all have heat sources on.

I would encourage you to go the route of a nice well started young boa from a reputable breeder. Not only is this always the best route for any snake purchase in my opinion but with boa's you want to make sure you have a healthy snake from an IBD free collection. Due to that issue you do want to keep strict quarantine for a number of months. Even from a top breeder, when you choose to keep a collection with boas and pythons in it, well I think quaratine just becomes that much more imporant. For us, we just make it a part of keeping a mixed collection that we never allow them together even though we've had some of the boas for quite awhile now. They live in seperate parts of our home, they are never out together and we do all our BP work first, then the boas and the milksnake thereafter (with any snake in QT last of course).

As far as temperment, a well started, well cared for boa that is given a routine of calm, quiet handling generally matures into a lovely pet snake. They seem to be more at ease with handling by humans and seem to tolerate it for longer periods of time without showing as much stress as we'd note in our BP's. They are however powerful snakes, even the smaller males, so when you have them out for handling you must keep them under control. Digging a sneaky snake out of the depths of your couch is less than fun (I've been there LOL).

Most boas aren't picky feeders and will take a variety of prey offered in all three feeding methods (live, p/k or f/t). They seem to adjust well in that way to the keepers preference in feeding routines. They do have a very long strike range though and tend to be powerful feeders so use common sense when feeding a hungry boa. We've noted in our boas that they tend to strike fast and hard, constrict well and then guard their now dead prey for a time before settling down to eat (the BP's just hit, constrict and slurp down dinner). During that guarding time if you bug them, I've seen them break off the feed completely so once we know they have their live prey well dealt with, we leave them be to settle down and swallow it.

I would say all in all they are great snakes. Males don't get that big really and are easily handled by just about anyone (at least anyone with good common sense ). The big females like the one we have, who is probably close to 8.5 to 9 feet, do require a bit more smart handling and thought about safety issues, especially for me since I'm barely over 5 feet.

As far as housing our boas seem to enjoy a good size enclosure and the ability to climb to different levels. Some boas like a hide especially when young, others don't seem to care but we offer them a dark hide or an enclosure that allows them to melt away into a dark area where they can't be easily seen. Of course fresh water in a heavy, non-spill, non-breakable bowl. For substrate we use a mix of 3/4 cypress mulch, 1/4 aspen that we do ourselves. The cypress mulch helps keep in humidity in a big boa enclosure, the aspen adds loft and softness that the cypress is missing. We've tried pure aspen but it doesn't retain as much humidity and it tends to get compressed too much under the weight of a big boa.

In shed our boas seem to very much need to be left alone, even more so than our ball pythons. They tend to get very out of sorts and a bit grumpy so other than checking them and misting if they need the extra moisture in the dryer months, we leave them be to get that done.

Hope this was helpful to you.