Do Boas (BCC/BCI) need to be fed rabbits?

[frankykeno]

I completely understand the meat/pet rabbit distinction, but I still can't envision purchasing them (even F/T) as food. For some reason I have no trouble with mice or rats, but there is just this mental hurdle there.

Having said that, I will never own an animal I can't care for properly. If it can't thrive in my care, I won't have one. I'm an animal lover (to the point of vegetarianism) and my pets are very dear to me.

(Yes, I am a vegetarian snake owner who feeds mice and rats. Wierd, huh?)

Heck I'm a person who loves rats and thinks they make excellent companion pets, yet I just as happily breed them, raise them and feed them to snakes. It's all about what the animal was meant for I guess, at least in my way of seeing it (pretty much same with the rabbits).

Tequila's been raised on rats her whole life and obviously you can see she's done just fine with that sort of feeding. In the end really it's all about total prey volume and the quality of that prey. Enough rats easily equals the volume of one rabbit. Also it depends on the quality of that prey item. One scraggly, skinny rabbit would never equal two big, well fleshed rats so quality is a huge concern I think no matter what prey type you pick.

Remember too that male BCI's rarely reach the size of the bigger females so do very, very well on a purely rat diet their whole life. Our male BCI, Severus, is much smaller than Tequila and is extremely healthy and fit on his rat diet.

Oh, and tequila pretty much rocks.

Thanks! We just adopted her not long ago from another BPNet member (Jamie Glass) and we're in love with this big girl. She's so incredibly laid back and just a really big love of a snake. You can't be stupid and ever forget how much power she has in that big body of hers but all in all, her temperment is that of the very typical good natured, hard to stress out boa.