Considering a Red Tail

[anendeloflorien]

Ok so after much consideration I've decided that my next herp pickup is going to be a Red Tail Boa. I need some opinions and suggestions though. What is considered desireable in red tails? Obviously a nice deep red tail is good and I really like striped tails but they might be out of my price range.

I'm just looking for something that might get a bit bigger plus I'm absolutely fascinated by live birth. I'm thinking a female to start off with because even though I don't really PLAN on breeding now if I ever decided to having a female that's already somewhat up to size would be good.

So now I'm wondering about locale...... Columbian, Nics, Arg (but I think they get a little too big for me right now), Dumerils...... Just need some opinions and some idea of how much I may be looking at paying for something like that. I know it's kind of a broad question but my birthday is coming up (4 days before christmas ) and my girlfriend wants to get me a new species lol.

Thanks in advance guys!

[ncbloods]

If the red tail is most important to you, I'd consider a BCC locality boa. The columbian BCIs tail tends to brown/black out as they get older. I personally really like the Pervuians and the surinames. Rio Bravo Reptiles has some really nice locality boas.

[RichardA]

BCC's do have some of the best color retention.

Here is a baby BCI we have offered up:


They are nice snakes.....they do tend to be a bit nippy, but most can be calmed down alright.

[Thor26]

nippy really???
all my boas are the calmest snakes i know if i were you i would go with a suriname red tail = ]

[RichardA]

Yeah a few of the big gals are really really nippy and most of the juvies are for a while.....they seem to get over it after a time but they dont duck and cover like a ball does....LOL

Sarinames are very nice also!

[Patrick Long]

I would not go BCC your first boa.....thats just me.

Get a clean BCI, it will be your best friend for 40 years!

[starmom]

Here are my three Bci's. They are much more forgiving of husbandry errors than are Bcc's. They come in all sorts of colors and are just great snakes:
These two pictures are of my Bci pastel:



Here's my straight up Bci Columbian:



And here's my salmon Bci:



As you can see, lots of beautiful choices without the stress of husbandry exactness and without the feeding issues that sometimes arise with the Bcc's.

Just my thoughts....

[Kristy]

I completely agree with both Starmom and Pat, if this is your first boa go with a really nice BCI. They are much more forgiving husbandry wise, and a great way to start out.

There are many different gorgeous morphs out there. I got my BCI female from Jimi. She is a normal. Parents are Salmon x Normal.

[AndrewGeibel]

GET ONE!!!

I love mine. Here are some older pictures of her.

[RichardA]

Smokin Boas everyone!