Hey Everyone,
So last night I saw someone post a boa on kijiji for sale. It was one of those ads where you could just tell the person had no idea what they were doing... "it's 5 months old and I don't want snakes anymore"...
So I reached out to the seller to learn some more about the animal... her answers to my questions were brutal. Below is a list of husbandry and set up she had for it:
-In an exo terra 24x18x18... glass with screen= horribly dry. Flaked off skin all over the substrate, stuck shed all over the snake
-no supplementary heat or thermometer or hygrometer
- She was feeding it rat fuzzies almost EVERYDAY
up to 4-5 per week
So after some arguing with her I got her to drop her $100 asking price to $60 and to throw in any supplies she had (not much there...). Luckily I had just recently moved my other boa to a larger tub so I had a 17 qt basically ready to go. I set it up (Outside my reptile room), two hides, big bowl of water, paper towel for substrate. I put the snake in the tub (its a little nippy but not too bad) and it went right for the water bowl within 10 mins, soaking different areas of its body (thank god!)
So now I have this mysterious boa. It is unsexed (although I thought I saw a tail spur, I'll take a better look in a couple days), clearly a BCI. Apparently "it carries albino genes"... I'm guessing the person she bought it from told her it is het. albino or something. It is actually quite a nice looking boa, very orange tail, pale body with pink hues. Here is a picture:
I'll take better pictures in a couple days after it has relaxed.
She claims the boa is 5 months old... which is weird, a boa litter in December?! But it is really small, I'm guessing about 20-22" long and by eye maybe 100-130 grams.... it could have some "dwarf" blood in it I guess.. my Sonoran is 1 year old and not much bigger.
I guess I'll probably start it on hoppers if its been only eating tiny fuzzies, but I'll wait maybe 7-9 days-ish before I feed it?
I guess for now I will just keep it in a quite room, with lots of humidity and hope the stuck shed falls off... The only bad thing is I don't have an extra thermostat so its heat mat is only being regulated by a rheostat.. .hopefully that okay for now.
Also its tail is kinked at the tip... I know that could be a genetic thing but could it be from poor husbandry as well?
Any advice would be great!
Dillonn
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