Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I hear alot about power feeding and i just dont get it.Does anyone actually think that in the wild a boa will just eat 1 prey item a week or every 10- 14 days? I would think that they troll around the forest eating everything edible as they go along. As for that assumption that sometimes they go weeks without eating because of lack of prey, i would have to think that is very unlikely. Has any one here actually ever grown up a baby boa up to 10 feet or more ,and if so i would imagine it took upwards of at least 6 years i would also imagine that was only done without breeding the animal.I would imagine breeding takes alot out of a boa. I personally have only been able to raise a baby up to the 7 foot mark. All of my bigger monsters were all pretty much either purchased that way or pretty close to it. But i would love to hear peoples imput on this. I personally feed my boas on a case by case basis. I have animals that will only eat 1 pray item once or twice a month. While at the other end of the spectrum i have animals that will eat 2-3 times a week.I dont feel that i am powerfeeding but i would apreiciate peoples imput thanks

I think you have a pointt hat it is hard to issue a blanket statement as far as how often every BCI should eat. I agree it would be most likely a per animal basis also having something to do with age in some cases. I have found however that all my snakes seem to get "hungry after they miss their weekly meal. They start roaming the enclosure actively both day and night. I supose an argument can be made that int he wild they would require more energy since they are more active and spend more energy but I do not know.Personally I would prefer my boa to not get to 10 feet as it obviously would b e much harder to handle and care for. I think the blanket statement that can be made is just be smart about it, observe your animal and you will most likely develop a good schedule for it. Is better to err on the side of infrequency than to overfeed. Also in the wild their prey items differ in size and even substance. I am curious to see what others with field experience say.

I dont know if its better to under feed than to over feed. I cant help thinking that a big reason that alot of people slug out or get so many unfertilized ova is because of underfeeding.I guess if your not planning on breeding your females underfeeding would probably be the way to go, but i would imagine if your conditioning your female too breed wouldnt overfeeding a bit be the wise thing to do ? I mean not only do you have to not feed your animal for 6-8 weeks while you cool them down, but then there is the whole gravid time when she may or maynot eat for you.I would imagine that the extra weight would be benificial not detremental . I tend to feed my females as much as they will ,and i notice that after they give birth they still keep great body weight and seem less stressed. ive seen people who dont feed there females as much and after they give birth they look like hell and seem stressed. So i dont know this is why i welcome others opinions on this subject.

Well, if you are feeding some of your Boas every three to four days, I would suggest that you feed them bigger prey items less often and here is why.
Naturally boas are ambush type predators. They will stay in the same area for days or even weeks (normally near game trails) waiting for prey to come to them. They will not normally actively seek out prey. They will also feed on items much larger then when would ever consider feeding out snakes. I assume most of us have seen the nature shows of the snake eating an antelope or Jeff Corwin handling an Andaconda with a huge lump in it’s belly? A meal along those lines would take well over a week to digest. In fact I was watching one particular show where a snake had eaten a rabbit (large for the snake) and the rabbit took 10 days to digest. They would take daily x-rays of the snake and on the 10th day you could no longer discern that a rabbit was inside the snake. The x-rays were very interesting because during most of the time you could see the outline of the rabbit skeleton in the x-ray and how it degraded over time.
Now once a snake would take a meal this size, the snake would no longer be as agile and able to defend itself as well as it would do normally with out such a bulge. Therefore the snake then seeks a hiding spot until the meal is digested. This is the reason that a snake will go weeks in between meals. Now after the meal has passed and the snake has defecated it is ready to start the whole process all over again. The problem with feeding the snake every 3-4 days is that the snakes digestive track is never clear and the snake never gets a chance to rest. Digesting food for a cold blooded animal is very costly in terms of energy and requires warmth. If food lingers too long in the digestive track it spoils and either causes an infection or is regurgitated. Feeding every three to fours days keeps a constant supply of food in the track and never lets the track be free of acid or rest and that is unhealthy for the snake. It can lead to a prolapsed bowl or rectum as well as other problems with the snake.
I hope this info helps
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

.. that Hoppy has given..

First, not all the Boa are the same or exhibit the same feeding habits, temperature preferences and other things relative to feeding and growth. These things need to be taken into account before making rules about feeding and how much or how often they should be fed.

About the idea that Boas search around for food versus waiting in ambush, there is some truth to both statements. But it is mostly small Boa which do the hunting, after they get larger and perhaps become more familiar with their home-range they are more conservative in their movements and are known to frequent the same exact spots over a period of years, whether waiting for prey, a drink from a rain-shower or thermoregulating.. much as rattlesnakes do..

There was a good concept in the original post concerning small boas in nature probably constantly seeking food.. I think that may be largely true. Where the danger of overfeeding comes in is in captivity we don't give the boas 4 hectares to roam for prey, they don't have gut-loads of parasites and they are treated to an endless supply of high-quality, high-fat (compared to wild fare) food. In any kind of animal that situation needs to be watched and feedings adjusted.

A lot of the questions about and problems with feeding and temps and other procedural concerns answer themselves after watching your own animals in your care over a period of time. Feeding schedules and prey-size recommendations you may get here on the forums or elsewhere are only a starting point.

Be safe!
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

I read a scientific paper many years ago about this very subject. It was a study on a species of python, which fed almost exclusively on rats. During the years when the rat populations were high, the pythons growth rate was very high and they reached the size of a 3-4 year old python in just 1 to 1 1/2 years. Wild pythons, and I am sure boas, are very opportunistic and will take a pray animal when the opportunity presents itself. This means that in the wild they will “Power feed” themselves if given the chance.

Wild conditions and captive conditions are very different. Wild snakes get much more exercise than captive snakes, which we raise as couch potatoes. We can’t teach them to crawl on a tread mill now can we. Wild food items get more exercise as well and are not big fat rats like we feed in captivity. If the cage enclosure is big enough and the proper temperature gradient is provided, I do not see any problem with growing a boa up rapidly. I agree that larger food items spread out a little more is better, but if they will take the food, it is probably not a bad thing when they are young and growing.

Adults can get very fat! Breeding females will need a lot more food than males. Once boas are grown many factors will decide how much food they will need. Their food intake will need to be adjusted to their conditions on an individual case by case basis. This is where a little experience comes in. It is unlikely that female boas breed every year in the wild, but in captivity, this may be our goal. In this case, the females will need to be “Power fed” if there is any chance for them to breed more often than they would in the wild.

It is unlikely that we will ever duplicate the conditions in the wild, and we may not want to either. Do we want to wait 5-6 years for a female to start breeding, or do we want everything to be accelerated. In the wild, if the food is available, females may reach breeding size in 2 - 3 years, so there is no real right answer to the Power feeding question. There will always be two sides to this issue, and I guess it is up to each of us to decide which course they want to take. I breed a lot of different kinds of snakes and my females get just about all the food they want. If they don’t they may not reproduce and most breeders goals in a captive breeding programs is to produce offspring.

Everything can obviously be over done, so perhaps we can use a little control if we choose to “Power feed”. I have started to get on a schedule of feeding young snakes and females about every 5 days as much as they want, which works for me under my conditions.
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Joe Pierce
Snakes Alive!
"Home of the guaranteed feeders"
"If it won't eat, it is not worth a dime!"