This may be a dumb comment....and I have never seen any of my boas do this, but could he/she be musking in the cage..as in marking territory? I have seen my females urinate soon after a male is put in their enclosure, but I have never noticed any unusual odors. If you are smelling it immediately after putting him/her in the enclosure and you don't smell it just before, when you are still holding him/her, it would seem to me, he is deliberately emitting "something". I don't know if, or to what extent, males mark territory in the wild. None of mine do it that I have seen. Perhaps it is because mine are all CB.....is your boa a wild-caught?



It would seem that if he/she is ill and the odor stems from the illness, you would smell it all the time. It would be better right after a bath, but it would come back eventually and you would notice it while you are holding the animal.



I have a female boa here, that belongs to a friend at work. He has owned this female a little over 6 years and she is his beloved-precious-baby-girl Last fall, we brought her here to possibly breed with my Motley. She did not like me AT ALL in the beginning and would show me ALL her teeth (and tonsils) everytime I opened her cage door. She never offered to strike or bite, and I was very careful handling her. Once, I had her out and she musked me. I noticed the oily substance on my hands before any odor, which was really not very strong. She only did it that once and before long, she accepted me as her new housekeeper/ratprovider.



Well....I hope you find some answers and I wish you the best with this boy/girl
-----
Linda Hedgpeth

lindafh@frontiernet.net

Sierra Serpents



"Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is so serious".

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