Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This girl is about 2 1/2 years old and closing in on four feet now. The pics don’t show her color very well, she has developed a stunning neon pink/purple background. This is one of only two wild caught animals in my collection (actually born here from a wild caught gravid female).
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MillerReptiles.com

She is beautiful!! And to think, all those lovely purples and
pinks, great tail and great peaks from a WC... looks like
a show-piece to me!!
Guyana?

Yep, she's from Guyana. Very good!

small for her age. she is 4 feet long and 2 1/2 year old?

i feed mine a good meal every 7-10 days and they are 4 feet at 1 year old. and mine are bci which are supposedly smaller. that looks like a suri, which are bcc and so larger.

please, i don't mean any offence. just want to know whats normal. thanks

Many owners make the mistake of pushing their animals to breeding size. Particularly with the BCC, it is more a matter of age. They can breed at four, but five is better. (The BCI will breed younger, but it's still a good idea to take it easy.) In another 2 1/2 years she will be plenty big, then I'll pump her up right before breeding. Hopefully she'll still be around in 20 years. I bring all my boas along very slowly. They don't respond well to fast growth, it can lead to a very short and tragic life in extreme cases. I'm not exactly sure why, but it may be that the heart doesn't grow as fast as the rest of the body. Or it could be due to fat, or clogged arteries? My Womas, on the other hand, I will grow to five feet in 18 months, and I haven't seen any ill effects whatsoever.

does what u said refer to both bcc and bci or just bcc? i had read that you cannot feed baby bcc more then once every 10 days or something because they then to have regurg problems. maybe even though they are bigger overall, theare a little more sensitive?

as for me, a meal every 7-10 days is not power feeding, right? i thnk its basic. and my boas don't look fat, you can see the stips of muscles running along the body, like they are ripped.

i am not a boa expert, i just have 2. then only way to learn more is trough experince, and at a much lesser price, by talking to someone with experiece like you

Personally, I lean more to a feeding schedule of every 10-14 days. This gives a few days (after digesting the last meal) when the animal is active and moving around looking for food. I think the exercise is good. Different snakes grow at different rates, but four feet in one year sounds a little quick to me. However, I am no expert on BCI by any means. I would suggest consulting someone like Jeff Ronne, Rainshadow, or Jeremy Stone for the best feeding schedule and optimum growth rates for BCI.

You are right Barry. It is both their heart and skeletal structure that can not keep up to the rest of their mass if over fed. The proof that skeletal structural lags behind is the small (pin) heads of over fed boas. I have seen SDS (sudden death syndrome) hit power fed boas at only four to six years of life. An under developed heart and skeletal structure also means a reduced immune system.
Grow them boas slow!

In my experience BCC tend to have a much slower growth rate than BCI.

Beautiful snake, Barry. That tail simply glows!

Nice photo setting, too.

-Brandon

n/m

barry shes simply amazing!!! insane color and pattern, nice pick!

sean mills
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