New to boas but not snakes need help with Young red tail

[ndheep]

I adopted a supposed almost two year old red tial boa. To me it looks like a baby . They were feeding it fuzzy mice every couple of weeks. My question is were they lying to me about age or just neglected it so it is small. And to go forward how should I go about getting healthy again

[zactay22]

Either you have giant hands, a dwarf locale, someone's lying. Looks mostly healthy from pics. Just feed correct size meals every 7 days. The frequency of sheds will tell growth. I have seen boas on smaller side from maintenance feeding, but two years old is hard to believe. I have a male bci that I feed on the conservative side and he will be 2 in August. He is around 4 feet currently.

[ndheep]

That is what I was expecting when they said just about 2 years old a 3 to 4 foot snake not the little guy I got. Does it look like it would be able to eat an adult mouse or should I stick with the hoppers. Thanks for the help

[zactay22]

An adult mouse would be fine. If you could find one on the the smaller end of the scale. Did the previous owners know the lineage. It's about impossible to tell what you have by looks. Overall good looking boa, I like the busy wild pattern.

[Andy_G]

Normally, common BCI's are born large enough to eat hoppers or adult mice. It's hard to know exactly what you have there. It's certainly not a true BCC redtail, and the way the tail appears as well as a higher saddle count makes me think that it may have some central bloodlines in the mix, but the details of history aren't present enough to prove or claim that. I would definitely be feeding it adult mice or possibly even a large rat pup or small rat weanling depending on it's weight.

[ndheep]

They bought it at the pet store I get my feeders from a local mom and pop store. I asked them if they keep records of who bought from them but no. It should be a regular bci. But there is a chance it is central American. They have sold a few of them. I will switch to adult mice after I finish the couple of hoppers I have left. The store doesn't stock rats smaller than a small rat.

[zactay22]

Well least you don't overweight power fed boa.

[bigsnakegirl785]

I feel like it's a bit small for adult mice, hoppers should work for awhile. You want to see a bulge with no scale separation - you shouldn't be able to see the thin skin in between the scales immediately after they swallow it.

That's roughly the size my sunglow was when I got her, maybe slightly longer at most. It shouldn't be long before it's big enough for adult mice, but at its current size I would assume hoppers would be more appropriate.

It definitely looks heavily Central American influenced to me, but that's still small for a 2 year old. The people you got it from probably got mixed up on the age, it looks perfectly healthy. Not underweight or even dehydrated, which is common.

[ndheep]

Thank you for the advise. He or she is doing well and adjusting nicely to its new enclosure should turn out to be a great snake.

[Andy_G]

You want to see a bulge with no scale separation - you shouldn't be able to see the thin skin in between the scales immediately after they swallow it.

Hmm...that's a new one.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Hmm...that's a new one.

It's a direct quote from the book The Complete Boa Constrictor by Vin Russo, probably the leading boa constrictor breeder.

Boa constrictors have incredibly slow metabolisms, probably on par with blood pythons. They can PHYSICALLY take big meals, but they shouldn't have large meals regularly. Again, because of their slow metabolisms.

If you want to be complicated an go in-depth, you could switch up small prey items with large prey items, just give the larger prey items extra time to digest and feed smaller prey items next.

So, say I give my 6.5' boa a jumbo rat instead of his usual large rat. Instead of me waiting 4-5 weeks to feed him again as usual, I'd probably wait at least 7-8 weeks to give him another large rat.

[Andy_G]

Blood pythons have a slower metabolism than boa constrictors, no question there...but yes boas certainly aren't pituophis, that's for sure. Perhaps not a "new one" after all, just doesn't make complete sense to me as you'll almost always see a little bit of skin between the scales when you feed at some kind of angle. A good guideline for those who are unsure of prey size, I suppose? After all...so many people overfeed.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Blood pythons have a slower metabolism than boa constrictors, no question there...but yes boas certainly aren't pituophis, that's for sure. Perhaps not a "new one" after all, just doesn't make complete sense to me as you'll almost always see a little bit of skin between the scales when you feed at some kind of angle. A good guideline for those who are unsure of prey size, I suppose? After all...so many people overfeed.

It's once they've swallowed, not while swallowing. It's very easy to feed prey without showing the slightest bit of skin once it's all the way down. I'm even able to do that with my 10 month old, and even when I got her at 1 month old. Just feed babies mice instead of rats until they can eat adult mice, even rat pinks are rather large, and are quite a bit larger than a hopper mouse.

And yeah it's an easier guideline than saying "roughly the snake's width," because it's almost impossible to correctly gauge whether or not a rat/mouse is a snake's width just eyeballing it, so knowing what it should look like after it has been swallowed is a lot more helpful.

[SnakeyJay]

That's a good rule of thumb to have with feeding boa's, easily over fed.

My 08 male takes medium rats every 3weeks ish and tbh he may start being stretched to 4 weeks as he's not exactly a small boy lmao.

Funnily enough I actually bought my male as a CA dwarf... He's now 7.5ft ish :D haha

[dannybgoode]

Agree looks a nice healthy snake. Looks very much like my Aunty Rachel who's a CA Bci. If it is a CA or part CA it is likely to stay smaller than a Colombian Bci and don't forget there is no hard and fast rule on how big a particular snake will get.

Is it on the small side? Yes. Does that mean the age is wrong? No. It might just be a small snake. We have a kitten about 9 months old and I can honestly say she's the smallest cat for her age I have ever seen. But she is perfectly healthy and a beautiful cat.

The feeding advice you have been given is excellent - boas are very easy to overfeed. For the record I am feeding my boa (10 months old and about 2'3") medium adult mice and they are the perfect size for her every 7-8 days. I don't know if that's the UK equivalent of hoppers or not!

[dannybgoode]

Reasonably up to date photo of Aunty Rachel attached for reference.

[Mad Max]

Your snake does look like a Central American, but it's much smaller than mine is. He's 21 months old and starting to top out at 4.5 feet. I think the shape of your snake's face reminds me more of my snake at a younger age too.

I always used string to measure the widest point of my boa and then I made sure that the dead prey item was slightly narrower than he was. I never saw any scale separation that way, which is indeed a topic in the book that Bigsnakegirl mentioned.